Thanos Has a Free API: Highly Available Prometheus with Long-Term Storage

Thanos extends Prometheus with unlimited retention, global query view across clusters, and downsampling. It turns multiple Prometheus instances into a single, highly available metric system. What Is Thanos? Thanos is a CNCF incubating project that adds HA, long-term storage, and global querying to Prometheus. It uses object storage (S3, GCS, Azure) for cost-effective retention of years of metrics data. Key Features: Global query across Prometheus instances Unlimited metric retention via object storage Automatic downsampling (5m, 1h) Deduplication of HA Prometheus pairs Compatible with PromQL and Grafana Compaction and cleanup Rule evaluation Store API (gRPC) Architecture Components # Thanos Sidecar (runs alongside Prometheus) thanos sidecar \ --tsdb .path = /prometheus \ --prometheus .url = http://localhost:9090 \ --objstore .config-file = bucket.yml # Thanos Query (global query layer) thanos query \ --store = sidecar-1:10901 \ --store = sidecar-2:10901 \ --store = store-gateway:10901