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Head-to-head · Metrics Monitoring Tools

Zabbix vs Prometheus

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 1 check side by side
Higher score Zabbix #1 in Metrics Monitoring Tools 9.4/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 3 features Visit Zabbix
Prometheus #4 in Metrics Monitoring Tools 9.0/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 3 features Visit Prometheus

Zabbix leads on 0 checks, Prometheus on 0, and 1 is even. Who comes out ahead on the 1 yes/no, price and count check where we have data for both products. The editor score weighs everything else too.

Our verdict

  • Highest scoreZabbix · 9.4/10
  • Free planboth

Zabbix scores higher on our rubric for metrics monitoring tools: 9.4 against 9.0 out of 10; our editors rank them #1 and #4.

Zabbix is the better fit for broad, open-source hybrid infrastructure monitoring. Prometheus is the better fit for engineers building open-source metrics stacks.

  • Zabbix fits best

    Broad, open-source hybrid infrastructure monitoring

  • Prometheus fits best

    Engineers building open-source metrics stacks

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 Zabbix 9.4/10 Visit ↗ Prometheus 9.0/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 9.4 9.0
Ranking #1 in Metrics Monitoring Tools #4 in Metrics Monitoring Tools
Best for Broad, open-source hybrid infrastructure monitoring Engineers building open-source metrics stacks
Pricing model Free plan + paid Free
Starting price €245/mo Free plan
Free plan ✓ ✓
Free trial — —
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted Self-hosted
Platforms Web, Linux, Windows, macOS Web, Windows, macOS, Linux
Support Email, Phone, Tickets, Community, Docs · 24/7 Community, Docs
Integrations 12 integrations 8 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Zabbix 0/3 · Prometheus 0/3
Custom metrics Not checked yet Not checked yet
Self-hosted option Not checked yet Not checked yet
SLO tracking Not checked yet Not checked yet
Specs
Data retention Not checked yet Not checked yet
Query language Not checked yet Not checked yet
Data ingestion Not checked yet Not checked yet
Our review
Pros
  • Free, open-source self-hosted deployment with no license fee
  • Covers infrastructure, VMs, services, networks, logs, and cloud systems
  • Supports discovery, correlation, remediation, proxies, and high availability
  • PromQL supports multidimensional time-series analysis with labels.
  • HTTP scraping and service discovery support dynamic monitoring targets.
  • Alertmanager, Grafana, exporters, and remote storage extend the stack.
Cons
  • Self-hosted deployment requires organizations to manage their own infrastructure
  • The $50/month Cloud Nano plan is limited to 50 new values per second
  • Silver support is billed annually at €245 per month
  • Local storage is single-node rather than horizontally scalable.
  • Prometheus does not support SQL queries.
  • Larger distributed architectures require federation or remote storage integrations.
Our verdict

Zabbix is an open-source infrastructure monitoring and observability platform for IT teams, enterprises, and service providers. It collects metrics from servers, networks, applications, databases, virtual machines, containers, cloud…

Read the review →

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 engineers monitoring infrastructure, applications, and services,…

Read the review →
  1. ZabbixMetrics Monitoring Tools 9.4Free plan
  2. PrometheusMetrics Monitoring Tools 9.0Free plan

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Zabbix — where it wins

    • Free, open-source self-hosted deployment with no license fee
    • Covers infrastructure, VMs, services, networks, logs, and cloud systems
    • Supports discovery, correlation, remediation, proxies, and high availability

    Where it doesn't

    • Self-hosted deployment requires organizations to manage their own infrastructure
    • The $50/month Cloud Nano plan is limited to 50 new values per second
    • Silver support is billed annually at €245 per month

  • Prometheus — where it wins

    • PromQL supports multidimensional time-series analysis with labels.
    • HTTP scraping and service discovery support dynamic monitoring targets.
    • Alertmanager, Grafana, exporters, and remote storage extend the stack.

    Where it doesn't

    • Local storage is single-node rather than horizontally scalable.
    • Prometheus does not support SQL queries.
    • Larger distributed architectures require federation or remote storage integrations.

More comparisons

All metrics monitoring tools comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update