polarvsprometheus
Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.
| polar | prometheus | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71/100 | 90/100 |
| Rank in category | #1 of 13 in Billing | #1 of 104 in Monitoring & observability |
| GitHub stars | 10 436 | 66 852 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +153 | +625 |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 1 | 16 |
| Latest release | @polar-sh/cli@3.0.0 · 16 Oct 2026 | v3.15.1 · 21 Oct 2026 |
| Setup | Advanced | Moderate |
| Official Docker image | No | Yes |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Main language | Python | Go |
Which one should you pick?
prometheus scores 90/100 against 71/100 for polar, so it is the safer default.
prometheus ships more often: 16 stable releases in the past year, against 1 for polar.
If you want the quickest setup, prometheus is easier to run; polar needs more configuration.
prometheus is growing faster right now (+625 stars in 30 days).
polar details →prometheus details →
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