Suggestions appear as you type. Use the up and down arrows to choose one and Enter to open it.

This page's audience our own tag's counts — open to see them
–Visits
–Page views
–Clicks to vendors
–Time on page
–Reading now
Clicks to vendors, by tool
  • –
Top countries
  • –
Devices
  • –

– · visits, page views and clicks counted by our own tag, which counts more than our checked analytics; every figure rounded down · how we count

Head-to-head · Time-Series Databases

Prometheus vs VictoriaMetrics

  • 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
VictoriaMetrics #8 in Time-Series Databases 8.5/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 2 of 3 features Try VictoriaMetrics

Prometheus leads on 0 checks, VictoriaMetrics on 1, and 3 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 featuresVictoriaMetrics · 2 of 3

Prometheus scores higher on our rubric for time-series databases: 8.8 against 8.5 out of 10; our editors rank them #5 and #8.

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

Prometheus is the better fit for prometheus-native monitoring metrics. VictoriaMetrics is the better fit for prometheus-compatible metrics at scale.

  • Prometheus fits best

    Prometheus-native monitoring metrics

  • VictoriaMetrics fits best

    Prometheus-compatible metrics at scale

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 ↗ VictoriaMetrics 8.5/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 8.8 8.5
Ranking #5 in Time-Series Databases #8 in Time-Series Databases
Best for Prometheus-native monitoring metrics Prometheus-compatible metrics at scale
Pricing model Free Free plan + paid
Starting price Free plan Free plan
Free plan ✓ ✓
Free trial — —
Deployment Self-hosted Cloud, Self-hosted
Platforms Web, Windows, macOS, Linux Web, Windows, Linux
Support Community, Docs Email, Community, Docs
Integrations 8 integrations 15 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Prometheus 1/3 · VictoriaMetrics 2/3
SQL support — —
Retention policies ✓ ✓
Horizontal scaling — ✓ (best)
Specs
Deployment Self_hosted Both
Query languages PromQL MetricsQL, PromQL
Ingestion methods HTTP pull scraping; Pushgateway; Remote Write; OpenMetrics backfilling Prometheus scraping, Prometheus remote write, Prometheus exposition, InfluxDB line protocol, Graphite plaintext, OpenTSDB, JSON line, CSV, native binary, DataDog, NewRelic, OpenTelemetry, Zabbix Connector
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.
  • Free Apache 2.0 open-source edition with single-node and cluster versions
  • PromQL-compatible querying, MetricsQL, and long-term Prometheus storage
  • Horizontal scaling, replication, multi-tenancy, and configurable retention
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.
  • Cloud pricing starts at $200 per month
  • Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales
  • Metrics-focused design excludes SQL support
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 →

VictoriaMetrics is an open-source time-series database and monitoring solution for teams collecting, storing, and querying high-cardinality metrics. It supports self-hosted single-node deployments, horizontally scalable clusters, and a…

Read the review →
  1. PrometheusTime-Series Databases 8.8Free plan
  2. VictoriaMetricsTime-Series Databases 8.5Free 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.

  • VictoriaMetrics — where it wins

    • Free Apache 2.0 open-source edition with single-node and cluster versions
    • PromQL-compatible querying, MetricsQL, and long-term Prometheus storage
    • Horizontal scaling, replication, multi-tenancy, and configurable retention

    Where it doesn't

    • Cloud pricing starts at $200 per month
    • Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales
    • Metrics-focused design excludes SQL support

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