vs

Grafana Mimir vs M3DB

Grafana Mimir: Grafana Labs' horizontally scalable, multi-tenant long-term store for Prometheus and OTLP metrics. M3DB: Uber-born distributed TSDB and aggregator for Prometheus-scale metrics with tunable replication.

key differences

  • Licensing: Grafana Mimir is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0); M3DB is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0).

choose grafana-mimir for

  • +Centralised multi-tenant metrics for many clusters
  • +Long-term Prometheus storage on object storage
  • +Platform teams offering metrics-as-a-service internally

best at · Observability, Time-series

choose m3db for

  • +Very large Prometheus remote-write backends
  • +Migrating Graphite at scale to PromQL
  • +Multi-resolution metrics retention

best at · Observability, Time-series

overview
Primary model
Time-Series
Time-Series
Also supports
–
–
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Grafana Labs
M3 project (Uber, Chronosphere)
First release
2022
2018
Latest version
3.2.3 (Oct 22, 2026)
1.6.0 (Sep 25, 2026)
License
Open source (copyleft)GNU AGPL v3.0
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
15.8
4.2
Rank
#203
#416
GitHub stars
5.3K
4.9K
Stack Overflow questions
10
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Massive (Multi-PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
None
None
Consistency
Eventual
Tunable
Schema
Schemaless
Schemaless
Architecture
Distributed, Shared storage
Distributed, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
—
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
–
capabilities
Transactions
—
—
Joins
—
—
Secondary indexes
—
—
Full-text search
—
—
Vector search
—
—
Geospatial
—
—
JSON
—
—
Change data capture
—
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
—
—
Materialized views
—
—
TTL / expiry
✓
✓
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
—
—
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
—
—
Role-based access
—
—
Time travel
—
—
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
—
—
Streaming ingest
✓
✓
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
PromQL
PromQL, Graphite, M3QL
Client languages
–
Go
Best for
Observability, Time-series
Observability, Time-series

Grafana Mimir vs M3DB: FAQ

What is the difference between Grafana Mimir and M3DB?

Grafana Mimir: Grafana Labs' horizontally scalable, multi-tenant long-term store for Prometheus and OTLP metrics. M3DB: Uber-born distributed TSDB and aggregator for Prometheus-scale metrics with tunable replication. Licensing: Grafana Mimir is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0); M3DB is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0).

When should I choose Grafana Mimir over M3DB?

Choose Grafana Mimir for centralised multi-tenant metrics for many clusters, long-term Prometheus storage on object storage and platform teams offering metrics-as-a-service internally. Choose M3DB for very large Prometheus remote-write backends, migrating Graphite at scale to PromQL and multi-resolution metrics retention.

Is Grafana Mimir or M3DB more popular?

Grafana Mimir ranks #203 on the WhichDB Score (15.8/100) and M3DB ranks #416 (4.2/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Grafana Mimir and M3DB open source?

Yes. Grafana Mimir is open source. License: GNU AGPL v3.0. Yes. M3DB is open source. License: Apache License 2.0.