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Prometheus Node Exporter vs Metricbeat: catalog facts
Prometheus Node Exporter	Metricbeat
Free Free and open source, maintained by the Prometheus project.	Free Free to download; Elastic Cloud hosting is a paid option.
Linux, Command line	Windows, Linux, Command line
Standard source of host metrics for Prometheus setups Collectors can be enabled or disabled individually	Ready-made modules for common services like Apache, Redis and NGINX Packages for apt, yum, Docker and Kubernetes
Needs a Prometheus server to store and query the data No dashboards or alerting on its own	Most useful alongside Elasticsearch and Kibana Default build is under the source-available Elastic License
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: Apache-2.0 (OSS build); Elastic License (default build)
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 October 1, 2026

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