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Prometheus vs Grafana
Trust Score comparison · March 2026
VS
Trust Score Δ
35
🏆 Prometheus wins
Signal Comparison
4.2M / moGitHub DL1B+ total
218 commitsCommits (90d)1.8k commits
55k ★GitHub stars64k ★
12k q'sStack Overflow16k q's
Very HighCommunityVery High
PrometheusGrafana
Key Differences
| Factor | Prometheus | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache 2.0 | AGPL 3.0 |
| Language | Go | TypeScript / Go |
| Hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Free tier | — | ✓ Yes |
| Open Source | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| TypeScript | — | ✓ |
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
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
Side-by-side Quick Start
Prometheus
# 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'],
});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 UICommunity 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.