Compare software

Prometheus Node Exporter vs Grafana Alloy: catalog facts
Prometheus Node Exporter	Grafana Alloy
Free Free and open source, maintained by the Prometheus project.	Free Free and open source from Grafana Labs.
Linux, Command line	Self-hosted
Standard source of host metrics for Prometheus setups Collectors can be enabled or disabled individually	One collector for logs and other telemetry Replacement for the retired Promtail
Needs a Prometheus server to store and query the data No dashboards or alerting on its own	Only a collector; needs Loki, Grafana or another backend to be useful Configuration takes time to learn
Downloadable app	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License not stated
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.