shouldiuse.io

VERDICT

Should I use Thanos?

Highly available Prometheus setup with long term storage capabilities. - thanos.io

Depends. Buy if you run Prometheus across many clusters and need cheap, years-long metrics retention. Skip it if you have one Prometheus instance or want a managed, zero-ops monitoring service.

Confidence

Medium. Based on ~20 public sources; mostly official docs and listings, no independent user reviews

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support quality
  • Security posture

Pricing

Free

Open source

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes

Best for

  • Large Kubernetes fleets
  • Multi-cluster Prometheus setups
  • Teams needing years of metrics retention
  • Cost-sensitive long-term storage

Not for

  • Single Prometheus instance — plain retention is enough
  • Small teams without dedicated SRE/Kubernetes staff
  • Anyone wanting a hosted, zero-ops monitoring SaaS
  • Non-Prometheus metrics stacks

Gotchas - check before you buy

high

You operate every component yourself; no vendor to escalate to when it breaks

medium

Object storage bill grows with retention — budget for metric growth before committing

medium

Guess: migrating historical data out of Thanos-managed buckets later is nontrivial; plan an exit

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Free and open source
  • Global query view across Prometheus instances
  • High availability and data backup built in
  • Cheap long-term storage via your own object storage (~$0.02/GB)
  • Predictable releases every 6 weeks

Cons

  • Multi-component architecture; real setup and ops burden
  • Requires running and paying for your own object storage
  • Sidecar must run alongside every Prometheus server
  • No vendor support; community-maintained project
  • Prometheus-specific; not a general metrics backend

Sources & method

Analyzed 9/21/2026 - 8 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x5review x1security x1news x1

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • Free

    Starting price

  • 8

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Free software; you pay only object storage
  • Ease of use: 2/5. Multiple components must be deployed and composed
  • Feature depth: 4/5. HA, global query view, backup, long-term storage
  • Support quality: 2/5. Community OSS on GitHub; no vendor SLA
  • Security posture: 3/5. Security policy published; no public CVEs found
  • Free Price Open source
  • ~$0.02/GB Storage cost Typical object storage price per design docs
  • Every 6 weeks Release cadence Stated regular, strict schedule

Pricing

Open source

Free

  • All Thanos components included
  • You provide and pay for object storage (~$0.02/GB typical)

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Evidence is mostly official docs, package listings, and comparison pages; no substantial independent user reviews surfaced.

Companies that use it

Full analysis

Based on ~20 public sources; mostly official docs and listings, no independent user reviews

Free Prometheus scaling layer for big Kubernetes fleets; heavy ops burden, overkill for small or single-instance setups.

Methodology

Based on ~20 public sources; mostly official docs and listings, no independent user reviews

Sources

  1. Thanos official sitethanos.io
    official
  2. Thanos GitHub repositorygithub.com
    official
  3. Thanos design docthanos.io
    official
  4. Thanos getting startedthanos.io
    official
  5. Thanos at Medalliathanos.io
    news
  6. Thanos security policythanos.io
    security
  7. Thanos release processmaster--thanos-io.netlify.app
    official
  8. Thanos vs Grafana Agent comparisonlibhunt.com
    review

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