What is the difference between Prometheus and Grafana?

Prometheus and Grafana are two distinct open-source software tools used for monitoring and visualizing data.

1. Prometheus is a monitoring system used to collect and store time series data. It regularly scrapes metric data from targets such as CPU usage and memory usage, storing it in a time series database. Prometheus also offers an expression language for querying and aggregating data, along with built-in alerting rules and notification mechanisms.
2. Grafana is an open-source visualization tool used to create and display dashboards for monitoring data. It supports various data sources, including Prometheus. Grafana offers a wide range of chart and dashboard editing features, allowing users to customize the visualization of monitoring data according to their needs. It also supports creating alert rules and notifying users through various communication methods.

In summary, Prometheus is primarily used for collecting and storing monitoring data, while Grafana is used for displaying and visualizing this data. They can be used together, with data collected by Prometheus being utilized to create attractive and interactive monitoring dashboards in Grafana.