Prometheus vs VictoriaMetrics
Prometheus
prometheus.io
VictoriaMetrics
victoriametrics.comSide by side
| Figure | Prometheus | VictoriaMetrics |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $200/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Cloud Monitoring | 7.6 (#15) | 8.1 (#9) |
| Spec score · Monitoring Observability | 7.7 (#17) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Metrics Monitoring Tools | 7.7 (#21) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Monitoring | 7.7 (#32) | 8.1 (#26) |
| Spec score · Time-Series Databases | 7.7 (#23) | 8.1 (#15) |
| Spec score · Container Monitoring | 7.7 (#35) | 8.1 (#27) |
| Founded | 2012 | 2018 |
| Integrations | The ecosystem includes client libraries, exporters, Pushgateway, and Alertmanager; integrations also include Grafana for visualization and webhook-based alert notifications. | The plans and features page lists ingestion support for Influx, Graphite, OpenTSDB, RemoteWrite, DataDog, NewRelic, and OpenTelemetry, plus Grafana datasource support for logs. |
| Security | Prometheus and most exporters support TLS, including client certificate authentication, and HTTP Basic Authentication is also supported. | VictoriaMetrics lists TLS/HTTPS, JWT, LDAP, SSO, identity-provider integration, and mTLS between cluster components among its security features. |
| Support | The project offers community support through channels including Slack, mailing lists, and a Discourse forum, and lists independent commercial support providers separately. | Enterprise support includes expert technical support and guidance, while community users have open-source community support options. |
Plans
VictoriaMetrics
- VictoriaMetrics Open SourceFree
- VictoriaMetrics Cloud — VictoriaLogs$200 a month
- VictoriaMetrics Cloud — VictoriaMetrics$200 a month
- VictoriaMetrics EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Prometheus
Prometheus is a free, open-source toolkit for systems monitoring and alerting that collects metrics as time series. Each series is identified by a metric name and key-value labels, and PromQL is used to query the data. Prometheus typically gathers metrics by pulling over HTTP; it can also receive pushed data through an intermediary gateway. Targets can be found with service discovery or configured statically. The main server runs as a standalone monolithic binary without external dependencies, and official components are available as precompiled binaries and Docker images. Its ecosystem includes client libraries, exporters, Pushgateway and Alertmanager, with Grafana for visualization and webhooks for alert notifications. Prometheus and most exporters support TLS, client certificate authentication and HTTP Basic Authentication. The project advises against exposing component HTTP endpoints to public networks without protective measures. Servers do not depend on network storage or remote services, which the project says can help during outages. Prometheus is not recommended for uses requiring 100% accurate data, such as per-request billing.
VictoriaMetrics
VictoriaMetrics is a time-series database and monitoring solution for collecting, querying, and retaining metrics. Its observability stack also covers logs and traces, with open-source, enterprise, and managed cloud offerings. The open-source single-node and cluster versions cost nothing. VictoriaMetrics Cloud is fully managed, with operations, automated backups, software updates, and dedicated resources; its page advertises a free 30-day trial. Cloud plans start at $200 a month for VictoriaMetrics and $200 a month for VictoriaLogs, with capacity tiers, deployment limits, and hourly usage metering. The platform supports Prometheus-compatible scraping and PromQL-compatible workflows, as well as MetricsQL. Listed ingestion options include InfluxDB line protocol, Graphite, OpenTSDB, RemoteWrite, DataDog, NewRelic, OpenTelemetry, and others. Deployment options include on-premises, hybrid, and cloud. Security features include TLS/HTTPS, JWT, LDAP, SSO, identity-provider integration, and mTLS between cluster components. Enterprise support includes technical help and guidance; community users have open-source community support options.