Classic vs Native Histograms: A Complete Guide

Classic vs Native Histograms: A Complete Guide

An educational reference dashboard for understanding, querying, and migrating between classic and native Prometheus histograms. Live examples use the demo_api_request_duration_seconds metric from the promlabs demo environment.

What's inside

• Conceptual overview — side-by-side comparison of how classic and native histograms work, including exposition formats and key differences at a glance
• Classic histogram panels — latency percentiles (p50/p95/p99), per-path cardinality demo, fraction-under-threshold queries, and a PromQL cheat sheet
• Native histogram panels — bucket schemas, setup & configuration guide, PromQL cheat sheet, and ecosystem/tool compatibility notes
• Cardinality & billing analysis — live series counts (classic vs native), cardinality multiplier, sample-type breakdown (float vs histogram), and a billing impact calculator at scale
• Step-by-step migration guide — dual-mode exposition → dashboard/alert updates → cut-over and clean-up, with silent-failure gotchas to watch for

Requirements

• Prometheus with native histogram support (v2.40+) or a compatible remote write backend
• To use the live examples as-is, connectivity to the promlabs demo environment is required; substitute your own histogram metric for a self-contained setup

Tags

prometheus histograms native-histograms cardinality migration education promql