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Developer Tools · head to head

Hookdeck vs Thanos

Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Developer Tools

Event gateway that receives, queues, retries and replays inbound webhooks

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Thanos logo

Thanos

Cloud

Highly available Prometheus with long-term object storage

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Hookdeck pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.; Thanos several components — sidecar, store, querier, compactor, ruler — each with its own configuration and failure modes
  • They diverge on capability: Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Thanos covers Global query.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Hookdeck and Thanos actually diverge.

Attributes where Hookdeck and Thanos differ
AttributeHookdeckThanos
Pricing modelPer month by delivered event countOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, WindowsKubernetes, Linux, Docker
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCloud

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Hookdeck

  • Ingest and persist
  • Automatic retries
  • Filters and fan-out
  • Transformations
  • Local development CLI
  • Rate limiting

Only in Thanos

  • Global query
  • Object storage retention
  • Deduplication
  • Downsampling

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Hookdeck

  • A payments integration where losing a Stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfillednot Thanos
  • Fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separatelynot Thanos
  • Debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fixnot Thanos
  • Receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnelnot Thanos

Thanos

  • Querying metrics across many clusters or regions from one placenot Hookdeck
  • Retaining metrics for years without local disk growthnot Hookdeck
  • Removing the gap that appears when a single Prometheus instance restartsnot Hookdeck

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Hookdeck

  • Pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • Free-tier retention is three days, which is shorter than the time it typically takes to notice a failing integration, so the payloads needed for a replay are often already gone.
  • It becomes a single point of failure in front of every third-party integration, and an outage there means every provider webhook queues or fails at once.
  • The transformation layer runs JavaScript in a constrained environment, so anything that needs a database lookup or an external call has to happen downstream instead.
  • For a team already running Kafka or SQS the value is mostly the console and the replay UI, which is a hard cost to justify against infrastructure they already operate.

Thanos

  • Several components — sidecar, store, querier, compactor, ruler — each with its own configuration and failure modes
  • The compactor is a common source of operational trouble and must not run twice against the same bucket
  • Query latency over object storage is meaningfully higher than local Prometheus
  • Object storage costs and API request charges become real at high volume

Pricing, plan by plan

Hookdeck

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Up to ten thousand events per month
    • Three-day retention
    • One user
  • Team$39/month
    • Ten thousand events included
    • Unlimited users
    • Pay as you go metering above the included events
  • Growth$499/month
    • Ten thousand events included plus metered usage
    • Thirty-day retention
    • Uptime and latency SLAs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated event volume
    • Custom retention
    • Dedicated support

Thanos

Free
  • ThanosFree
    • Full functionality
    • No usage limits
    • Community support

Which should you pick?

Choose Hookdeck if

  • You need ingest and persist.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want automatic retries.
Hookdeck review

Choose Thanos if

  • You need global query.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Kubernetes, Linux, Docker.
  • You also want object storage retention.
Thanos review

Questions people ask

Is Hookdeck or Thanos better?
Neither clearly leads. Hookdeck starts at Free and Thanos at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Hookdeck or Thanos?
Hookdeck starts at Free and Thanos at Free.
Does Hookdeck or Thanos run on more platforms?
Hookdeck runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows. Thanos runs on Kubernetes, Linux, Docker.
Can I use Hookdeck for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Hookdeck best used for?
Hookdeck is most often used for a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled, fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately, debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fix, receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnel. Of those, a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled and fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately are not what Thanos is typically brought in for.
What can Hookdeck do that Thanos cannot?
Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Automatic retries, Filters and fan-out, Transformations. Thanos covers Global query, Object storage retention, Deduplication, Downsampling.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Hookdeck: Is there a free plan?

Yes, ten thousand events a month with three-day retention and one user.

Thanos: Is Thanos free?

Yes, open source and CNCF-incubating. Costs are the object storage it uses.

Hookdeck: How is usage counted?

By delivered events, so a single inbound webhook fanned out to three destinations counts as three.

Thanos: Does Thanos replace Prometheus?

No. It runs alongside existing Prometheus servers, adding global query, deduplication and long-term storage.

Hookdeck: Can I replay a failed webhook?

Yes, individually or in bulk from the console, with the original payload.

Thanos: Thanos or VictoriaMetrics?

Thanos layers onto Prometheus using object storage and is the more established multi-cluster answer. VictoriaMetrics is a separate store aiming at lower resource use and fewer moving parts.

Hookdeck: Does it work for outbound webhooks too?

Yes, the same queueing, retry and observability applies to webhooks you send.

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