# Postal vs prometheus

> Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.

| | Postal | prometheus |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 72/100 | 90/100 ✓ |
| Rank in category | #3 of 16 in Mail Server | #1 of 104 in Monitoring & observability |
| GitHub stars | 16 899 | 66 828 ✓ |
| Stars, last 30 days | +75 | +632 ✓ |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 3 | 16 ✓ |
| Latest release | 3.3.7 · 3 Jun 2026 | v3.15.1 · 21 Oct 2026 ✓ |
| Setup | Advanced | Moderate ✓ |
| Official Docker image | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Main language | Ruby | Go |

## Which one should you pick?

prometheus scores 90/100 against 72/100 for Postal, so it is the safer default.

prometheus ships more often: 16 stable releases in the past year, against 3 for Postal.

If you want the quickest setup, prometheus is easier to run; Postal needs more configuration.

prometheus is growing faster right now (+632 stars in 30 days).

## Details

- [Postal](https://selfhost.directory/project/postal) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/postal.md)
- [prometheus](https://selfhost.directory/project/prometheus) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/prometheus.md)

---
Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/postal-vs-prometheus