The github repo of Prometheus Operator https://github.com/coreos/prometheus-operator/ project says that
The Prometheus Operator makes the Prometheus configuration Kubernetes native and manages and operates Prometheus and Alertmanager clusters. It is a piece of the puzzle regarding full end-to-end monitoring.
kube-prometheus combines the Prometheus Operator with a collection of manifests to help getting started with monitoring Kubernetes itself and applications running on top of it.
Can someone elaborate this?
I've always had this exact same question/repeatedly bumped into both, but tbh reading the above answer didn't clarify it for me/I needed a short explanation. I found this github issue that just made it crystal clear to me. https://github.com/coreos/prometheus-operator/issues/2619
Quoting nicgirault of GitHub:
At last I realized that prometheus-operator chart was packaging kube-prometheus stack but it took me around 10 hours playing around to realize this.
Here's my summarized explanation:
"kube-prometheus" and "Prometheus Operator Helm Chart" both do the same thing:
If they achieve the same end goal, you might ask what's the difference between them?
https://github.com/coreos/kube-prometheus
https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/prometheus-operator
Basically, CoreOS's kube-prometheus deploys the Prometheus Stack using Ksonnet.
Prometheus Operator Helm Chart wraps kube-prometheus / achieves the same end result but with Helm.
So which one to use?
Doesn't matter + they achieve the same end result + shouldn't be crazy difficult to start with 1 and switch to the other.
Helm tends to be faster to learn/develop basic mastery of.
Ksonnet is harder to learn/develop basic mastery of, but: