What is Prometheus Operator used for?

Prometheus Operator is a Kubernetes operator that deploys and manages Prometheus, Alertmanager and related monitoring components through custom resources. It is a good fit for running Prometheus on Kubernetes clusters, automating monitoring stack configuration and platform teams standardizing observability.

Is Prometheus Operator open source?

Yes. Prometheus Operator is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at prometheus-operator/prometheus-operator and is written mainly in Go.

Is Prometheus Operator free?

Yes. Prometheus Operator is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Prometheus Operator?

Yes. Prometheus Operator can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What are some alternatives to Prometheus Operator?

Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include Grafana Loki, VictoriaMetrics and Alertmanager. SaaS products in the same category include Chronosphere, Groundcover and Sematext.

Is Prometheus Operator actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Prometheus Operator was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.94.1, published on 23 September 2026. The project has 10k stars on GitHub.

Prometheus Operator: open-source monitoring & observability

About Prometheus Operator

The Prometheus Operator handles deploying and managing Prometheus and its related monitoring components in a Kubernetes-native way. Its aim is to make setting up a Prometheus-based monitoring stack on Kubernetes clusters simpler and mostly automatic, so that operators describe what they want and the controller makes it happen.

It does this with Kubernetes custom resources for Prometheus, Alertmanager and related components, and lets you set the fundamentals such as version, persistence, retention policies and replicas from a native resource. Monitoring targets are generated automatically from familiar Kubernetes label queries, which removes the need to learn Prometheus-specific configuration for service discovery.

The operator itself is considered production ready, with stable v1 custom resource definitions and less stable v1beta1 and v1alpha1 versions that may change. The README explains how it differs from kube-prometheus and the community Helm chart. It is written in Go and licensed under Apache-2.0, and suits platform teams running Prometheus on Kubernetes.

Key features

Custom resources for Prometheus and Alertmanager
Declarative version, retention and replica settings
Automatic target configuration from labels
Persistent storage configuration
Stable v1 API with versioned CRDs
Part of the Prometheus ecosystem on Kubernetes

Good fit for

→Running Prometheus on Kubernetes clusters
→Automating monitoring stack configuration
→Platform teams standardizing observability

Built with: Go; Kubernetes
Tags: prometheus; kubernetes; operator; monitoring; alertmanager; observability; devops; golang

Prometheus Operator: questions and answers

What is Prometheus Operator used for?: Prometheus Operator is a Kubernetes operator that deploys and manages Prometheus, Alertmanager and related monitoring components through custom resources. It is a good fit for running Prometheus on Kubernetes clusters, automating monitoring stack configuration and platform teams standardizing observability.
Is Prometheus Operator open source?: Yes. Prometheus Operator is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at prometheus-operator/prometheus-operator and is written mainly in Go.
Is Prometheus Operator free?: Yes. Prometheus Operator is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Prometheus Operator?: Yes. Prometheus Operator can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What are some alternatives to Prometheus Operator?: Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include Grafana Loki, VictoriaMetrics and Alertmanager. SaaS products in the same category include Chronosphere, Groundcover and Sematext.
Is Prometheus Operator actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Prometheus Operator was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.94.1, published on 23 September 2026. The project has 10k stars on GitHub.