Comparison

M3DB vs Prometheus

On the evidence we track, Prometheus leads this comparison with a composite score of 69/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.

Machine formatsJSONMarkdownGraphQLor send Accept: application/json
M3DB36
Prometheus69
Score
Vioscale score
M3DB36 / 100medium · 51%
Prometheus69 / 100medium · 58%
Pricing
Free tier
M3DB
Prometheus
Model
Price level
M3DBfree
Prometheusfree
Transparent
M3DB
Prometheus
Integrations
Count
M3DB4
Prometheus18
Adoption
Dependent repos
M3DB10
Prometheus5,467
Github stars
M3DB4,895
Prometheus65,837
Package downloads weekly
M3DB
Prometheus9,036,061
Activity
Commits last 30d
M3DB0
Prometheus100
Release
Cadence days
M3DB11
Prometheus6
History
Prometheus20 items
License
Spdx
PrometheusApache-2.0
Language
Primary
M3DBGo
PrometheusGo
Market
Availability

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for time-series databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Query
Query language (SQL / PromQL / InfluxQL-Flux / Graphite)
M3DBPromQL, Graphite
PrometheusPromQL
SQL compatibility
M3DBNon-SQL
PrometheusNon-SQL
Ingest
Ingest model
M3DBPush
PrometheusBoth
Model
Data model
M3DBMetrics (labels/tags)
PrometheusMetrics (labels/tags)
Lifecycle
Downsampling / rollups
M3DBRetention policies
Prometheus-
Retention / TTL
M3DBAutomatic
Prometheus-
Storage
Compression (columnar / delta / Gorilla)
M3DBcolumnar
Prometheus-
Performance
High-cardinality handling
M3DBStrong
PrometheusStrong
Scale
Clustering / horizontal scale
M3DBDistributed / sharded
PrometheusDistributed / sharded
Replication / HA
M3DB
Prometheus
Deployment
Deployment
M3DBSelf-hosted
PrometheusSelf-hosted
Interop
Prometheus remote-write compatible
M3DB
Prometheus
Licensing
Licence class
M3DBPermissive OSS
PrometheusPermissive OSS

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

M3DB

M3 is a metrics platform consisting of a distributed time-series database, query engine, and ingestion system designed to handle massive metric volumes efficiently. It provides Prometheus and Graphite compatibility while optimizing for performance and cost efficiency through purpose-built storage and querying components.

Independently observed

Prometheus

Leader

A systems monitoring platform that collects metrics from configured targets at regular intervals, evaluates alert rules using PromQL, and triggers notifications. It uses a dimensional data model with key-value labels for flexible metric analysis and dashboarding.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

M3DB

Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Prometheus

Leader
Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
Web
M3DB
Prometheus
macOS
M3DB
Prometheus
Windows
M3DB
Prometheus
Linux
M3DB
Prometheus
CLI
M3DB
Prometheus
Deployment
Self-hosted
M3DB
Prometheus
On-premise
M3DB
Prometheus

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

M3DB

4 total
  • Prometheus
  • Graphite
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
Independently observed

Prometheus

Leader
17 total
  • Amazon SNS
  • Discord
  • incident.io
  • Jira
  • Mattermost
  • Microsoft Teams
  • OpsGenie
  • PagerDuty
  • Pushover
  • Rocket.Chat
  • Slack
  • Telegram
  • VictorOps
  • Webex
  • WeChat
  • Webhook
  • Email
Independently observed

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.