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It's a split decision.
Prometheus and Graphite are not direct substitutes. Prometheus is an open-source metrics and monitoring system: choose it to instrument services, query time series with PromQL, and define alerts while running your own servers. Graphite is a GitHub-synced code review platform: choose it for AI PR reviews, stacked pull requests, and a merge queue. Prometheus has no software usage fees; Graphite has a free personal plan and paid per-user team plans.
01Side by side
| Prometheus | Graphite | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free software; no usage fees | Per-user annual plans; enterprise custom |
| Free tier | No seat or usage limits imposed | Hobby plan for personal account repos |
| Open source and licence | Apache 2.0; community-driven | Licence and open-source status unpublished |
| Self-hosting | Self-hostable; servers use local storage | GitHub-synced code review platform |
| API and SDKs | PromQL; instrumentation libraries for major languages | AI review and Chat on pull requests |
| CLI and docs | Get-started and download paths | CLI and VS Code extension |
| Integrations | Hundreds, including Kubernetes and container managers | GitHub sync and Slack notifications |
| Deployment model | Independent servers; local storage | Workflow synced with GitHub |
Prometheus Choose Prometheus if
- Choose Prometheus if you need metrics collection and monitoring.
- Choose Prometheus if PromQL alerts and time-series queries fit your stack.
- Choose Prometheus if you need Apache 2.0 software you can self-host.
Graphite Choose Graphite if
- Choose Graphite if your team wants AI-assisted GitHub pull request reviews.
- Choose Graphite if you manage changes with stacked pull requests.
- Choose Graphite if you need a merge queue and shared PR inbox.
02Pricing at real usage
Prometheus is free, open-source software under Apache 2.0. The pricing page lists no seat or usage limits, and Prometheus does not charge a software subscription. You still run the servers and local storage; the product pricing does not give a compute or hosting bill.
Graphite’s Hobby plan is free for personal account repositories and includes limited Chat and AI Reviews. Starter is listed at $20 per user per month with annual billing; Team is $40 per user per month with annual billing. The pricing page says paid annual billing is 20% off, while monthly prices are not published. At team scale, the bill grows with paid seats: for example, 10 Team seats at the listed annual rate total $400 per month on an annual-billing basis. Enterprise pricing is custom. Graphite also advertises a 30-day free trial.
03API, SDKs and integration
Prometheus is a metrics system: instrument services, collect time series, then query them with PromQL. Its official and community instrumentation libraries cover most major languages, though the product pages do not enumerate them. Prometheus also lists hundreds of integrations for extracting metrics from existing systems, including Kubernetes and other cloud and container managers. Alerting rules use PromQL; a separate Alertmanager component handles notifications and silencing.
Graphite is a code review workflow synced with GitHub, not a metrics-query system. Its listed developer tools are a CLI for stacked pull requests and a VS Code extension. The PR page includes AI reviews and Graphite Chat for code context and CI failures; Slack notifications connect team activity to another part of the workflow. The product pages describe these integration surfaces but do not specify a general-purpose API or SDK. Teams evaluating custom automation should confirm the supported interfaces and documentation with Graphite.
04Open source, self-hosting and lock-in
Prometheus is community-driven open-source software under the Apache 2.0 license, and you can self-host it. Its servers operate independently and rely on local storage. That gives operators control over deployment, but they are responsible for running the monitoring servers and deciding how to retain or move stored metrics.
Graphite is presented as a GitHub-synced code review service. The vendor doesn’t publish its open-source status, a self-hosting option, or a data-export path on its product pages. Before adopting it across an organization, ask about deployment choices and how to export PR review data, settings, and team configuration. Because Graphite’s workflow is built around GitHub, assess which review steps depend on Graphite-specific features such as stacked PRs, Chat, and the merge queue, and plan how those workflows would change if you moved.
Questions people ask
What is Prometheus used for?
Prometheus instruments, collects, stores, and queries metrics from applications, systems, and services. Teams use its dimensional time-series model and PromQL for queries, visualizations, and alerting rules. It integrates with Kubernetes and other cloud and container managers, and its servers can run independently with local storage.
Is Prometheus the same as Grafana?
No. Prometheus collects and stores metrics and provides PromQL for querying them. Grafana is often used to build dashboards from data sources, but it is not a substitute for Prometheus’s metrics collection and alerting system. Prometheus supports dashboarding use cases and can be paired with other tools.
Can Graphite replace Prometheus?
Not for metrics monitoring. Graphite is an AI code review platform with GitHub-synced pull requests, stacked changes, and a merge queue. Prometheus collects and queries system metrics and supports alerting. Pick based on the problem: PR workflow or observability. The products are not direct alternatives.
Does Prometheus charge based on usage?
Prometheus is free, open-source software under Apache 2.0, and its pricing lists no usage or seat limits. You run the servers yourself, so infrastructure still needs to be operated and provisioned. Prometheus does not list a hosted usage-based price in its pricing information.