Prometheus vs SigNoz
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Prometheus and SigNoz.
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
Prometheus
0 reviews
4.0/5
SigNoz
0 reviews
Prometheus is rated higher (4.2 vs 4.0). Prometheus is the leading open source metrics monitoring system. Pull-based metrics collection, PromQL query language, and Alertmanager. Kubernetes-native. Self-hosted with integrations for 200+ services. SigNoz is a full-stack open source observability platform — metrics, traces, and logs in one. Datadog alternative you can self-host. Uses ClickHouse for efficient storage.
Prometheus Open source metrics and alerting system | SigNoz Open-source observability platform for logs, metrics, and traces | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 4.0 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | free | freemium |
| Starting price | Free | Free tier available |
| Best for | DevOps and platform teams that want the Kubernetes-native open-source metrics standard they fully control, and accept running the storage and HA story themselves. | Engineering teams priced out of Datadog or New Relic that want OpenTelemetry-native logs, metrics and traces with computable usage-based costs and US/EU/India data residency. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | United States, European Union, India (SigNoz Cloud regions) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostable | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access |
| Visit Prometheus → | Visit SigNoz → | |
Prometheus
Pros
- + Free and open source under Apache 2.0 with independent CNCF governance — no per-node or per-metric licensing
- + The industry-standard metrics stack: PromQL, multidimensional labels, and exporters for most software you already run
- + Kubernetes and Consul service discovery keep target configuration sane at container scale
- + Simple core: single autonomous nodes with local TSDB and a documented operational model
- + CNCF graduated since 2018 with a decade of production history and a very active contributor community
- + Honest documentation — storage constraints and the security model are stated plainly, including what the product deliberately does not do
Cons
- - No built-in long-term storage or global HA — Thanos, Cortex, or Grafana Mimir are separate operational projects
- - High-cardinality labels can blow up RAM and disk with no guardrails in the product
- - No built-in authentication or encryption; endpoints must be kept behind a perimeter by design
- - Multi-tenancy and access control are absent from the core
- - Community support only for the open-source download — SLAs come with paid managed offerings
- - PromQL and histogram handling have a genuine learning curve for teams new to the model
SigNoz
Pros
- + Usage-based pricing with published per-unit rates ($0.30/GB logs and traces, $0.10/mn metric samples) and no per-user or per-host billing
- + OpenTelemetry-native: no proprietary SDKs, so instrumentation does not lock you in
- + Logs, metrics, traces, APM, exceptions and alerts correlated in one ClickHouse-backed product
- + Self-hostable open-source community edition plus cloud regions in the US, EU and India with SOC2 Type II and HIPAA compliance
- + Worked pricing examples and a bill calculator published — costs are computable before you commit
Cons
- - No published uptime SLA below the Enterprise tier (from $4,000/month)
- - Self-hosted community edition makes storage, scaling, upgrades and backups your operational problem
- - Usage bills move with retention choices and noisy telemetry; the $49 entry tier shows a struck-through $199 base price
- - Narrower turnkey integration ecosystem than Datadog; RBAC is beta and audit logs/multi-tenancy are roadmap items
- - Migration tooling and dedicated Slack support are gated at spends above $999/month
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