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Amazon Web Services (AWS) Logo
7,074 views|6,293 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Prometheus Logo
6,261 views|5,569 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Jun 29, 2023

We performed a comparison between AWS X-Ray and Prometheus based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: AWS X-Ray's setup process is quick and manageable, typically taking no more than two days to complete. In contrast, setting up Prometheus can vary depending on the specific use case, with some finding it easy and others requiring more effort. The deployment time for Prometheus can range from one hour to several weeks.
  • Features: AWS X-Ray is great at error identification and security insights, while Prometheus is flexible and easy to integrate with different languages. Prometheus also has user-friendly features such as counters and exporters, as well as a reliable data storage system.
  • Pricing: AWS X-Ray offers affordable usage-based pricing that is better suited for larger companies. They do offer a free tier for small businesses, but pricing becomes more expensive for medium to big enterprises. Prometheus, on the other hand, is open source and free, making it a popular choice among users.
  • Service and Support: AWS X-Ray has received mixed reviews. Prometheus, on the other hand, relies on documentation and community support, without offering technical assistance. However, users report good support through forums.
  • ROI: AWS X-Ray's return on investment is unclear, however, Prometheus has been demonstrated to be efficient and cost-free, making it a more appealing alternative for supervision.

Comparison Results: Based on user feedback, AWS X-Ray is the preferred choice when compared to Prometheus. Users appreciate its ability to efficiently detect and resolve errors, along with its comprehensive information like IP addresses and user locations, ensuring compliance and security. Conversely, users feel that Prometheus could benefit from improvements in query language, setup process, and stability. Furthermore, AWS X-Ray stands out with its technical support, while Prometheus relies on documentation and an online community for assistance.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS X-Ray vs. Prometheus Report (Updated: March 2024).
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.""The solution has made it easier for us to trace the problems that we have with our requests and to monitor the timing of each step in each request we do in our endpoints.""The most important one is compliance. We're able to achieve our regulatory levels. We're able to achieve the security level that we need for the federal government.""It is a very scalable solution.""The most promising feature of AWS X-Ray is that you can debug the issues through the proper logs. You can also get an analysis out of the logs for some use cases, though I have yet to try all the features of AWS X-Ray.""AWS X-RAY identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."

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"The most valuable feature is that we can receive information in different formats.""The product has an easy-to-understand interface.""The product is easy to maintain.""The most valuable features of Prometheus are the many functions available. The functions are helpful for understanding the behavior of applications and infrastructure.""The best thing about Prometheus is its integration.""Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.""It is a stable solution...Based on the feedback I have received from my colleagues in our company's IT department, the setup phase of the solution is relatively easy.""The solution is useful to collect huge metrics."

More Prometheus Pros →

Cons
"What needs to be better in AWS X-Ray is the log filtering. Predefined filters could be helpful because the power of analytics comes from how you can filter the data. I also want to see more KPIs from AWS X-Ray.""I do not have any notes in terms of improvements.""If you have a small team, it's probably overkill.""The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly.""They can improve how traces are sent to other providers.""Like most Amazon products, the user interface, configuration, and tuning aren't the easiest. That's the biggest reason why people tend to go to products like TerraForm and Terragrunt. We use TerraForm and Terragrunt. So, for setting things up and interacting with X-Ray, it's definitely the user interface that can be better."

More AWS X-Ray Cons →

"Its documentation could be clearer to understand.""When it comes to deployment, if you have no experience with something like a CI/CD pipeline, it might be a challenge.""There isn’t much clarity regarding the issues that happen at the server end. It is a push model and from the client’s point of view, it needs to look better and solve remote issues.""The setup could be made easier for new users because it requires a bit of advance knowledge or experience.""If you are not quite technical, it can be pretty hard to understand the way it works and how to query data in Prometheus.""A slight alteration to the user interface should be made to increase efficiency and streamline the process. Currently, we are utilizing Prometheus to gather and compile metrics and then utilizing Grafana to display them in the form of a graph. However, I believe that Prometheus has the capability to handle both of these tasks on its own, with perhaps the addition of a supplementary plugin. By doing so, the need for utilizing two separate applications will be eliminated.""They could provide efficient logs in terms of clarity and ease of access similar to Datadog’s paid version.""Lacks the ability to clusterize."

More Prometheus Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
  • "As you develop a relationship with Amazon, your pricing gets lower. You get credits for the amount of the system you use, and then if you're the government, you can get government pricing. For commercial users, there's a hump when you go from small to medium to big enterprise. Small businesses can live pretty easily off the free tier in a lot of cases, but when you go from a medium to a big enterprise, it becomes more expensive on a per-user basis. I'd like to see that curve going in a different way where pricing can be driven down while people are trying to adopt the technology."
  • "The solution is a bit expensive."
  • More AWS X-Ray Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of Prometheus is good, it is affordable because it is open source and there is no cost to it. You put it on your own server and the costs incurred completely depend on how you set it up."
  • "This is an open-source solution."
  • "The solution is not expensive."
  • "The solution is open source."
  • "The solution is free of cost."
  • "We use the solution's open-source version."
  • "The tool is open-sourced."
  • "We have the open-source version, so we don't pay for it."
  • More Prometheus Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
    Top Answer:They can improve how traces are sent to other providers.
    Top Answer:The solution can be deployed in thirty minutes.
    Top Answer:I use the solution in my company for monitoring purposes and metrics.
    Ranking
    Views
    7,074
    Comparisons
    6,293
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    547
    Rating
    8.2
    Views
    6,261
    Comparisons
    5,569
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    384
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Datadog logo
    Compared 17% of the time.
    Azure Monitor logo
    Compared 15% of the time.
    New Relic logo
    Compared 14% of the time.
    Sentry logo
    Compared 13% of the time.
    Elastic Observability logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Azure Monitor logo
    Compared 25% of the time.
    New Relic logo
    Compared 17% of the time.
    Dynatrace logo
    Compared 15% of the time.
    Sentry logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    ITRS Geneos logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Learn More
    Overview

    AWS X-Ray is a powerful debugging and performance analysis tool offered by Amazon Web Services. It allows developers to trace requests made to their applications and identify bottlenecks and issues. 

    With X-Ray, developers can visualize the entire request flow and pinpoint the exact location where errors occur. It provides detailed insights into the performance of individual components and helps optimize the overall application performance. 

    X-Ray integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, making it easy to trace requests across different services and identify dependencies. It also offers a comprehensive set of APIs and SDKs, enabling developers to instrument their applications and capture valuable data for analysis. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, AWS X-Ray is a valuable tool for developers looking to improve the performance and reliability of their applications.

    Prometheus is a powerful open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit designed for cloud-native environments. 

    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.

    Sample Customers
    COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Comms Service Provider6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Retailer13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Security Firm7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government5%
    Company Size
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise69%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business41%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise69%
    Buyer's Guide
    AWS X-Ray vs. Prometheus
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Prometheus and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    AWS X-Ray is ranked 13th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 6 reviews while Prometheus is ranked 9th in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability with 32 reviews. AWS X-Ray is rated 8.0, while Prometheus is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of AWS X-Ray writes "Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prometheus writes "A very flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need". AWS X-Ray is most compared with Datadog, Azure Monitor, New Relic, Sentry and Elastic Observability, whereas Prometheus is most compared with Azure Monitor, New Relic, Dynatrace, Sentry and ITRS Geneos. See our AWS X-Ray vs. Prometheus report.

    See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

    We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.