Prometheus is a powerful open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit designed for cloud-native environments.
Prometheus is praised for its exporters, counter, integration flexibility, easy installation and scratch values, scraping mechanism, remote write feature, dynamic conflict concept, numerous functions, and industry-standard integrations. It is considered a highly customizable and reliable open-box solution with fast data storage and database. Its ability to receive information in different formats and scale products and services is also appreciated. The dashboard and APIs/libraries for integration with various languages are valuable features. It is widely known and used in the FinTech and high-tech industries.
Prometheus needs improvement in several areas according to user feedback. The documentation is unclear, making it difficult to get metrics and receive alerts by email. The solution's stability needs improvement, and the alert functionality is lackluster. Visualization can be improved with better animation and logging features. The setup process requires advanced knowledge, and the query language and DSL could be simpler. Additionally, Prometheus could develop its own database to become a one-stop solution, and the user interface and UI color could be more efficient and user-friendly.
The use of Prometheus has resulted in a positive return on investment. The solution is effective for monitoring and is available for free. By implementing Prometheus, one can expect to see a return on their investment.
Prometheus is an open source solution. There is also a paid version available. The solution is not expensive compared to other options on the market. The cost of implementation depends on how it is set up on the user's own server.
Prometheus is primarily used as a centralized monitoring system for multiple servers, to record and store metrics data, and to monitor applications, systems, and databases. It is also used to scrape values from environments for safety and monitoring all aspects of infrastructure end-to-end, including servers, virtual machines, databases, caching servers, ELK stack, and Kubernetes servers. Additionally, Prometheus is used for visualizing metrics in Grafana, gathering business and service metrics, analyzing logs in the cloud environment, and as an indicator for on-call service. It is deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, and is an open-source network monitoring solution.
Prometheus is an open source technology with good documentation and a supportive online community that can provide technical assistance. Some users have not needed to contact customer support because of this.
The initial setup for Prometheus varied in difficulty, with some finding it easy and straightforward while others rated it as somewhat complex. The documentation was helpful in understanding the essential steps required for deployment. The deployment time depended on the use case, with monitoring a couple of servers taking about an hour while deploying several clusters or Kubernetes and other managed services added complexity and took days or even weeks. The solution was easy to set up and user-friendly, but understanding the configuration required writing a lot of jobs. Customizing the solution for specific needs took more time.
Prometheus is generally considered a scalable solution, with some users rating it a 10 out of 10 for scalability. Some users have reported having around 50 or even 300 users utilizing the solution. However, some users suggested that the default parameters could benefit from more context, and another suggested adding other open-source projects like Thanos to increase scalability. Despite these suggestions, most users agree that Prometheus is indeed a scalable product.
Users generally find Prometheus to be a stable solution, with some experiencing performance issues that may be related to infrastructure. The majority rate its stability as a nine out of ten. There is some interest in viewing reports to monitor metrics and ensure stability.
It collects metrics from various sources, including applications, services, and infrastructure components, providing real-time insights into system performance.
With its flexible data model and query language, Prometheus enables users to analyze and visualize metrics, facilitating troubleshooting and capacity planning. Its robust alerting system allows for proactive monitoring, notifying users of any anomalies or issues.
Prometheus also offers seamless integration with popular tools and frameworks, making it a versatile solution for monitoring and observability.