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Head-to-head · Cloud Monitoring

Prometheus vs Alibaba CloudMonitor

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 4 checks side by side
Higher score Prometheus #7 in Cloud Monitoring 8.7/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 3 features Visit Prometheus
Alibaba CloudMonitor #8 in Cloud Monitoring 8.6/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 3 of 3 features Visit Alibaba Cloud

Prometheus leads on 0 checks, Alibaba CloudMonitor on 0, and 4 are even. Who comes out ahead on the 4 yes/no, price and count checks where we have data for both products. The editor score weighs everything else too.

Our verdict

  • Highest scorePrometheus · 8.7/10
  • Free planboth
  • Most featuresAlibaba CloudMonitor · 3 of 3

Prometheus scores higher on our rubric for cloud monitoring: 8.7 against 8.6 out of 10; our editors rank them #7 and #8.

Prometheus is the better fit for teams building open-source metric monitoring. Alibaba CloudMonitor is the better fit for alibaba Cloud-centric monitoring.

  • Prometheus fits best

    Teams building open-source metric monitoring

  • Alibaba CloudMonitor fits best

    Alibaba Cloud-centric monitoring

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Side by side

Feature Prometheus 8.7/10 Visit ↗ Alibaba CloudMonitor 8.6/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 8.7 8.6
Ranking #7 in Cloud Monitoring #8 in Cloud Monitoring
Best for Teams building open-source metric monitoring Alibaba Cloud-centric monitoring
Pricing model Free Free plan + paid
Starting price Free plan Free plan
Free plan ✓ ✓
Free trial — —
Deployment Self-hosted Cloud
Platforms Web, Windows, macOS, Linux Web, Linux, Windows
Support Community, Docs Docs
Integrations 8 integrations 8 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Prometheus 0/3 · Alibaba CloudMonitor 3/3
Kubernetes monitoring Not checked yet ✓ (best)
Serverless monitoring Not checked yet ✓ (best)
Synthetic monitoring Not checked yet ✓ (best)
Specs
Cloud providers Not checked yet Alibaba Cloud; other cloud providers supported through Hybrid Cloud Monitoring (providers not individually specified on the cited page)
Metrics retention Not checked yet 15 days
Log retention Not checked yet Not checked yet
Our review
Pros
  • PromQL supports selecting and aggregating labeled time-series data
  • HTTP scraping supports static and service-discovery-based targets
  • Alerting, federation, and remote read/write support broader architectures
  • Free Basic plan includes alert messages and metric-query API calls
  • Monitors Alibaba and non-Alibaba hosts, Kubernetes, serverless, and sites
  • Supports Prometheus, PromQL, synthetic tests, dashboards, and threshold alerts
Cons
  • Local storage is single-node
  • No SQL query support
  • Horizontal scaling is not verified
  • Paid capabilities primarily use usage-based billing
  • The strongest cloud-native fit is centered on Alibaba Cloud
  • Retention varies by statistical period and edition
Our verdict

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit for collecting numeric metrics and storing them as timestamped time-series data with labels. It suits teams monitoring infrastructure, applications, and services, particularly in…

Read the review →

Alibaba CloudMonitor is a cloud monitoring service for operations teams managing Alibaba Cloud resources, internet applications, hosts, networks, and business metrics. It combines dashboards, resource and host metrics, event monitoring,…

Read the review →
  1. PrometheusCloud Monitoring 8.7Free plan
  2. Alibaba CloudMonitorCloud Monitoring 8.6Free plan

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Prometheus — where it wins

    • PromQL supports selecting and aggregating labeled time-series data
    • HTTP scraping supports static and service-discovery-based targets
    • Alerting, federation, and remote read/write support broader architectures

    Where it doesn't

    • Local storage is single-node
    • No SQL query support
    • Horizontal scaling is not verified

  • Alibaba CloudMonitor — where it wins

    • Free Basic plan includes alert messages and metric-query API calls
    • Monitors Alibaba and non-Alibaba hosts, Kubernetes, serverless, and sites
    • Supports Prometheus, PromQL, synthetic tests, dashboards, and threshold alerts

    Where it doesn't

    • Paid capabilities primarily use usage-based billing
    • The strongest cloud-native fit is centered on Alibaba Cloud
    • Retention varies by statistical period and edition

More comparisons

All cloud monitoring comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update