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Grafana vs Prometheus
Trust Score comparison · March 2026
VS
Trust Score Δ
35
🏆 Prometheus wins
Signal Comparison
1B+ totalDocker pulls4.2M / mo
1.8k commitsCommits (90d)218 commits
64k ★GitHub stars55k ★
16k q'sStack Overflow12k q's
Very HighCommunityVery High
GrafanaPrometheus
Key Differences
| Factor | Grafana | Prometheus |
|---|---|---|
| License | AGPL 3.0 | Apache 2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript / Go | Go |
| Hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Free tier | ✓ Yes | — |
| Open Source | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| TypeScript | ✓ | — |
Pick Grafana if…
- You need rich, interactive dashboards for your metrics
- You're using Prometheus and want a visualization layer
- You want a unified view across metrics, logs, and traces
Pick Prometheus if…
- You're running Kubernetes and need metrics collection
- You want open-source, self-hosted monitoring with no vendor lock-in
- You need fine-grained custom metrics with PromQL
Side-by-side Quick Start
Grafana
# Run Grafana with Docker
docker run -d \
-p 3000:3000 \
--name grafana \
-e GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=secret \
grafana/grafana
# Or add to docker-compose.yml
services:
grafana:
image: grafana/grafana
ports: ["3001:3000"]
volumes:
- grafana-storage:/var/lib/grafana
# Then: add Prometheus as a data source in the UIPrometheus
# prometheus.yml
global:
scrape_interval: 15s
scrape_configs:
- job_name: 'my-app'
static_configs:
- targets: ['localhost:3000']
# Expose metrics from Node.js
const client = require('prom-client');
const httpRequests = new client.Counter({
name: 'http_requests_total',
help: 'Total HTTP requests',
labelNames: ['method', 'status'],
});Community Verdict
Based on upvoted notes🏆
Prometheus wins this comparison
Trust Score 96 vs 61 · 35-point difference
Prometheus leads on Trust Score with stronger signal data across downloads and community health. That said, the other tool is worth considering if your use case matches its specific strengths above.