Cacti vs Kibana vs Prometheus: What are the differences?

# Introduction
Cacti, Kibana, and Prometheus are popular monitoring tools used in IT environments. Each tool has its unique features and capabilities that cater to different needs and requirements.

# 1. **Data Visualization**:
Cacti is specialized in graphing network bandwidth utilization, while Kibana focuses on visualizing and analyzing log data. Prometheus, on the other hand, is more focused on time series data monitoring with customizable dashboards.

# 2. **Data Collection**:
Cacti relies on SNMP for data collection, Kibana integrates with Elasticsearch for data indexing and querying, and Prometheus uses its own time-series database and a pull model to collect metrics from monitored targets.

# 3. **Alerting**:
Cacti lacks built-in alerting capabilities and requires external plugins for alerting functionality. Kibana also lacks native alerting features, while Prometheus has robust alerting capabilities with alert manager for defining and managing alerts.

# 4. **Scalability**:
Cacti is suitable for small to medium-sized environments due to its limitations in scalability. Kibana can scale horizontally by adding more nodes to the Elasticsearch cluster. Prometheus is designed to be highly scalable and can handle large deployments with thousands of targets.

# 5. **Integration**:
Cacti has limited integrations with other tools and technologies, making it less flexible for complex monitoring setups. Kibana can be easily integrated with various data sources and systems, providing more flexibility in monitoring different types of data. Prometheus has extensive integrations with cloud-native technologies, making it a popular choice for monitoring containerized environments.

# 6. **Querying and Analysis**:
Cacti lacks advanced querying and analysis capabilities, mainly focusing on graphing historical data. Kibana offers powerful querying and visualization tools for log analysis and monitoring. Prometheus has a PromQL language for querying metrics, enabling advanced analysis and troubleshooting.

In Summary, Cacti, Kibana, and Prometheus differ in data visualization focus, data collection methods, alerting capabilities, scalability, integrations, and querying and analysis tools.