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AWS X-Ray vs Prometheus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS X-Ray
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prometheus
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of AWS X-Ray is 3.9%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prometheus is 3.4%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Parth Solanki - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 29, 2022
Saves time, is relatively cheap, and helps find errors
It's basically like a cloud stack.  You can trace your entire HTTP request. Once you have submitted any request, it will be addressed as a 500 Error or 401 Error, or if there is any exception happening when this request, and how much time will take. X-Ray can trace all the information about the…
Noam Blidstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 22, 2022
A very flexible open box that can be used vastly to do anything you need
Make sure that you have dedicated manpower to configure and manage the solution. It requires handling, not necessarily on a daily basis, but it definitely requires someone who is focused and has expertise with the solution. Know in advance what you want to gain from the solution. Don't jump in to configuring or deploying before knowing what you expect from it. I like the solution very much. I think it is a major tool, especially in advanced environments. The open box provides a lot of flexibility and gives a very holistic view of the entire Kubernetes environment. Integrating with the Rancher management tool gives the solution even more abilities. There are several tools that we use behind the scenes to ease the process but the solution on its own is a very good tool. I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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 identifies bottlenecks in terms of stability and performance and how long certain data lives in terms of response time and duration."
"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."
"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 is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"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."
"Prometheus provides a flexible and adjustable querying and describing time, allowing for more responsive monitoring."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution helps us to scale our products and services, and it helps me by gathering those metrics."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The product is easy to maintain."
"The most valuable feature is that we can receive information in different formats."
"The most valuable features of Prometheus for metrics collection and monitoring are its stability, robustness, and rich set of features."
"The most valuable feature of Prometheus is the ease of pulling the metrics."
 

Cons

"They can improve how traces are sent to other providers."
"The user interface is sometimes kind of confusing to understand. It's not very user-friendly."
"I do not have any notes in terms of improvements."
"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."
"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."
"If you have a small team, it's probably overkill."
"Setting up the rules in Prometheus can be confusing, making it an area where improvements are required."
"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."
"If you are not quite technical, it can be pretty hard to understand the way it works and how to query data in Prometheus."
"Prometheus requires improvement on the query side."
"The DSL could be improved."
"The product must improve its documentation."
"The solution's error handling part could be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing for AWS X-Ray is a six out of ten."
"Prometheus is an open-source solution."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"Prometheus is an open-source tool."
"The tool is open-sourced."
"It is an open-source tool."
"Prometheus is available as an open-source product."
"My company uses the open-source version of the product."
"The product is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS X-Ray?
AWS X-Ray is a strong solution and has a smooth integration process.
What needs improvement with AWS X-Ray?
They can improve how traces are sent to other providers.
What do you like most about Prometheus?
The most valuable feature of Prometheus is its ability to collect metrics.
What is your primary use case for Prometheus?
We use Prometheus for observability and analyzing data for business metrics and system metrics. It helps us with messaging services observability. It also helps a lot with the architecture and scal...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

COMCAST, ConnectWise, skyscanner, AirAsia, cookpad, cimpress, VTEX, zowdow
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS X-Ray vs. Prometheus and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.