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Head-to-head · Time-Series Databases

Prometheus vs TDengine

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 4 checks side by side
Higher score Prometheus #5 in Time-Series Databases 8.8/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 1 of 3 features Visit Prometheus
TDengine #10 in Time-Series Databases 8.2/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 3 of 3 features Visit TDengine

Prometheus leads on 0 checks, TDengine on 2, and 2 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 · 8.8/10
  • Free planboth
  • Most featuresTDengine · 3 of 3

Prometheus scores higher on our rubric for time-series databases: 8.8 against 8.2 out of 10; our editors rank them #5 and #10.

On deployment, TDengine gives you Both where Prometheus offers Self_hosted. TDengine offers sql support; Prometheus doesn't. TDengine offers horizontal scaling; Prometheus doesn't.

Prometheus is the better fit for prometheus-native monitoring metrics. TDengine is the better fit for industrial telemetry and high-volume ingestion.

  • Prometheus fits best

    Prometheus-native monitoring metrics

  • TDengine fits best

    Industrial telemetry and high-volume ingestion

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature Prometheus 8.8/10 Visit ↗ TDengine 8.2/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 8.8 8.2
Ranking #5 in Time-Series Databases #10 in Time-Series Databases
Best for Prometheus-native monitoring metrics Industrial telemetry and high-volume ingestion
Pricing model Free Free plan + paid
Starting price Free plan —
Free plan ✓ ✓
Free trial — —
Deployment Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted
Platforms Web, Windows, macOS, Linux Web, Windows, macOS, Linux
Support Community, Docs Docs · 24/7
Integrations 8 integrations 14 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Prometheus 1/3 · TDengine 3/3
SQL support — ✓ (best)
Retention policies ✓ ✓
Horizontal scaling — ✓ (best)
Specs
Deployment Self_hosted Both
Query languages PromQL SQL
Ingestion methods HTTP pull scraping; Pushgateway; Remote Write; OpenMetrics backfilling SQL, InfluxDB Line Protocol, OpenTSDB Telnet Protocol, OpenTSDB JSON Protocol, MQTT, OPC UA, OPC DA, Kafka, CSV, PI System, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MongoDB
Our review
Pros
  • PromQL supports selecting and aggregating labeled time-series data.
  • HTTP scraping, service discovery, and exporters support metric collection.
  • Recording rules, Alertmanager, federation, and remote storage extend monitoring.
  • Supports MQTT, Kafka, OPC UA, relational databases, and line protocols
  • Combines retention, clustering, stream processing, and edge-to-cloud synchronization
  • Offers self-hosted, managed cloud, and a free tier for up to 5,000 tags
Cons
  • No SQL support for querying time-series data.
  • Local storage is single-node rather than horizontally scaled.
  • Broader architectures require federation or remote-storage integrations.
  • Paid cloud pricing starts at $970 per month
  • Free Tier is limited to self-hosted usage up to 5,000 tags
  • Paid self-hosted licenses support 7,500 tags
Our verdict

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit for infrastructure, applications, and services, particularly in dynamic and microservice-oriented environments. It collects numeric metrics through HTTP-based scraping and stores…

Read the review →

TDengine is a distributed time-series database for industrial and IoT data. It stores and queries timestamped data through TDengine SQL, with features for configurable retention, distributed clustering, stream processing, data…

Read the review →
  1. PrometheusTime-Series Databases 8.8Free plan
  2. TDengineTime-Series Databases 8.2Free plan

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Prometheus — where it wins

    • PromQL supports selecting and aggregating labeled time-series data.
    • HTTP scraping, service discovery, and exporters support metric collection.
    • Recording rules, Alertmanager, federation, and remote storage extend monitoring.

    Where it doesn't

    • No SQL support for querying time-series data.
    • Local storage is single-node rather than horizontally scaled.
    • Broader architectures require federation or remote-storage integrations.

  • TDengine — where it wins

    • Supports MQTT, Kafka, OPC UA, relational databases, and line protocols
    • Combines retention, clustering, stream processing, and edge-to-cloud synchronization
    • Offers self-hosted, managed cloud, and a free tier for up to 5,000 tags

    Where it doesn't

    • Paid cloud pricing starts at $970 per month
    • Free Tier is limited to self-hosted usage up to 5,000 tags
    • Paid self-hosted licenses support 7,500 tags

More comparisons

All Time-Series databases comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update