Bosun vs Prometheus: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Bosun and Prometheus are both popular open-source monitoring tools widely used in the IT industry. While they share similar goals of monitoring and collecting metrics, they have key differences that set them apart. In this article, we will explore the key differences between Bosun and Prometheus.

1. Data Collection Approach: Bosun primarily relies on active polling to collect metrics from systems. It periodically queries endpoints and gathers data. On the other hand, Prometheus follows a pull-based model where it relies on the endpoints exposing metrics, and Prometheus periodically scrapes these endpoints to collect the metrics.

2. Metric Storage: In terms of metric storage, Bosun utilizes an underlying Time Series Database (TSDB) called OpenTSDB. OpenTSDB stores historical time-series data, allowing users to query and analyze it. Prometheus, on the other hand, comes with its own built-in TSDB, which stores and retains metrics data.

3. Data Retention Policy: One significant difference is their approach to data retention policy. Bosun offers more flexibility in defining retention policies based on metrics and events. It allows users to set specific retention lengths for different types of metrics, providing granular control over data retention. In contrast, Prometheus follows a global configuration-based data retention policy, where the retention period is predefined for all metrics.

4. Alerting and Notifications: Bosun has a full-featured alerting system that covers various complex use cases. It includes customizable alerting rules and a notification system that supports multiple notification channels such as email, pager duty, and more. Prometheus, on the other hand, has built-in alerting capabilities, but it provides a more basic functionality for alerting and relies on external integrations for notification delivery.

5. Ecosystem and Integrations: Bosun has a narrower ecosystem compared to Prometheus. Although Bosun can integrate with other systems through its REST API and custom notifications, Prometheus has a more extensive ecosystem with various exporters, plugins, and integrations available, allowing it to gather metrics from different systems and integrate with popular tools like Grafana.

6. Querying and Analysis: Both Bosun and Prometheus offer powerful querying capabilities. Bosun uses its own query language called scollector for querying and aggregating metrics data. Prometheus, on the other hand, uses PromQL, a powerful query language specifically designed for querying its time-series data. Prometheus' PromQL provides a more flexible and expressive syntax for querying and analyzing metrics.

In summary, Bosun and Prometheus differ in their data collection approach, metric storage, data retention policy, alerting and notifications, ecosystem and integrations, and querying capabilities. These differences highlight their distinct features and capabilities, catering to different use cases and requirements.