Prometheus vs Zabbix
Prometheus and Zabbix are both powerful monitoring tools. Prometheus shines in modern, dynamic environments like Kubernetes, offering strong metric collection and querying (PromQL), favoured by technically adept teams. Zabbix provides a broader, more traditional all-in-one monitoring solution for diverse IT infrastructure, often seen as having more features out-of-the-box (like auto-discovery), potentially appealing for comprehensive coverage despite a sometimes complex setup. Prometheus is better for you if... your focus is primarily on metrics from cloud-native services like Kubernetes, you value a powerful query language for deep analysis, and have the technical team to manage its setup and integrations (like Grafana). Zabbix is better for you if... you need a single tool to monitor a wide variety of IT assets (servers, network devices, applications), appreciate features like auto-discovery and built-in visualization/alerting, and prefer a more traditional monitoring approach that might offer good value for broad coverage despite potential setup complexity.
At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.
This comparison was created by analysing 330 reviews and 60 websites, saving 2 hours, 20 minutes of reading.
About
About
Summary
Summary
Relative strengths of Prometheus (compared to Zabbix)
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Optimized for Cloud-Native Monitoring: Excels at discovering and monitoring dynamic targets like Kubernetes pods/services, making it easier to implement metrics in these modern environments.
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Powerful Metric Querying (PromQL): Offers sophisticated analysis and alerting possibilities through its flexible PromQL language, ideal for teams needing deep insights from time-series data.
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Strong Ecosystem Integration: Easily integrates with tools common in cloud-native stacks, notably Grafana for visualization and Alertmanager for advanced alerting logic, allowing for best-of-breed solutions based on metrics data collection..
Relative weaknesses of Prometheus (compared to Zabbix)
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Steeper Learning Curve: PromQL and the overall architecture require significant learning investment, potentially challenging for smaller teams compared to Zabbix's more conventional setup for basic monitoring.
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Requires More Integration for Full Functionality: Relies heavily on external tools like Grafana for dashboards and Alertmanager for sophisticated alerting, whereas Zabbix offers more built-in capabilities, potentially increasing setup complexity.
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Less Comprehensive Out-of-the-Box: Zabbix includes features like broad device auto-discovery and numerous pre-built templates for traditional IT assets, which Prometheus typically lacks, requiring more manual configuration for similar coverage outside of cloud-native scenarios..
What companies are using Prometheus and Zabbix?
What companies are using Prometheus and Zabbix?
Who should use Prometheus VS. Zabbix
Who should use Prometheus VS. Zabbix
Prometheus seems like a strong choice for larger organizations needing to manage complex assets like equipment or infrastructure. We often hear positive things about its tools for collecting metrics, setting up alerts, and integrating with other systems. It's designed to boost efficiency and safety in maintenance and operations, especially for those in asset-heavy fields. While there's a learning curve with its query language, users find it powerful once mastered.
We find Zabbix is a powerful open-source tool for keeping tabs on all your IT gear – servers, networks, cloud services, you name it. It's really flexible and can monitor almost anything, giving you detailed graphs and alerts. While users love its comprehensive capabilities and scalability, some find the initial setup a bit complex. It’s a solid choice for IT teams needing deep visibility and control over their infrastructure, especially if they value an open-source approach
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In our experience, Prometheus shines brightest in medium (101-1000 employees) and especially large enterprises (1001+ employees).
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While usable across various sectors, we find Prometheus particularly effective for large, asset-intensive industries like energy or manufacturing.
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In our experience, Zabbix is a great fit for tech teams across the board, scaling effectively from small businesses to large enterprises.
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We observe Zabbix is particularly strong in the Software, IT, and Telecommunications sectors where deep infrastructure monitoring is key.
Prometheus and Zabbix features
Supported Partially supported Not supported Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need
Prometheus and Zabbix features
- Comprehensive MonitoringPartially supported
Prometheus primarily monitors services and applications, often requiring integrations for comprehensive infrastructure coverage.
SupportedZabbix monitors networks, cloud, websites, servers and offers a single pane of glass view. IoT support might require custom configurations.
- Planning and schedulingSupported
Prometheus offers robust planning and scheduling tools for work, resources, and timelines, especially for maintenance and asset management.
Not supportedZabbix is primarily for IT infrastructure monitoring and not project planning.
- Asset Performance ManagementSupported
Prometheus offers dedicated APM software with predictive analytics and real-time monitoring.
Partially supportedZabbix can monitor physical assets with customization and integrations, but isn't specifically designed for APM.
- Real-time monitoringSupported
Prometheus excels at real-time application and server monitoring.
SupportedZabbix supports real-time monitoring of servers and applications.
- Performance monitoringPartially supported
Prometheus likely supports network performance monitoring via exporters.
Partially supportedZabbix monitors packet loss and other metrics, but support for latency and jitter is unclear.
- ReportingNot supported
Prometheus Group does not directly support network performance reports.
SupportedZabbix can generate scheduled PDF reports on network performance.
Qualities
Qualities
- Value and Pricing TransparencyNo data+1Strongly positive sentiment
- Ease of UseNo data+0.33Rather positive sentiment
- Reliability and Performance+1Strongly positive sentiment+0.82Strongly positive sentiment
- Ease of ImplementationNo data-0.6Rather negative sentiment
- ScalabilityNo data+0.78Strongly positive sentiment
Prometheus and Zabbix Pricing
User sentiment
See full Pricing page
User sentiment
Prometheus and Zabbix review insights
330 reviews analysed from and
Prometheus and Zabbix review insights
Users love
- Wide range of charts and visualization tools.
- Easy to expose metrics on any web app.
- Supports webhooks and third-party software.
- Easy to implement, especially for Kubernetes.
- Helpful for collecting metrics and creating alerts.
- Zabbix is an open-source advanced monitoring and alerting solution.
- It produces meaningful graphs and has triggers for each alert.
- It can monitor almost anything - from server resource consumption to web server certificate expiration date or database table data.
- Easy to install and use.
- Its capacity to monitor anything from servers and network devices to cloud services means that no component of our ecosystem is left uncontrolled.
Users dislike
- High memory consumption can be difficult to debug.
- Sharded architecture is not true sharding.
- UI could be improved with features like Grafana.
- PromQL queries can be complex and hard to learn.
- Alert management and integration with different channels can be challenging.
- Zabbix agents does not work in all applications like network Nas and conflict with other agents for backup solutions.
- The initial setup can be quite complex and may require a steep learning curve for new users.
- Some of the errors are non-descriptive.
- It would be nice if it were agentless...
- The documentation offered by Zabbix is not much; it is not complete and it is messy between versions
Prometheus and Zabbix Ratings
Prometheus and Zabbix Ratings
G24.4/5(51)
- G24.3/5(192)
Capterra4.7/5(87)
Glassdoor4.0/5(6)
Company health
Company health
Employee growth
Web traffic
Financing
How do Prometheus's asset-heavy industry features compare to Zabbix's IT infrastructure focus?
Which product offers easier implementation, given Zabbix's noted setup complexity?
What are the advantages of Prometheus?
What are the disadvantages of Prometheus?
Alternatives to Prometheus and Zabbix
Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.
Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.
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