Why we created a Prometheus Agent mode from the Grafana Agent

Prometheus Agent, initially supported in Prometheus v2.32, emerged from Grafana Agent to facilitate cloud-optimized metric collection by utilizing Prometheus’s core while excluding the time series database (TSDB) functionality. This development allows for efficient horizontal scalability in data ingestion, aligning with the CNCF ecosystem. The evolution from Grafana Agent, which initially aimed to be a leaner Prometheus solution for remote write, involved moving its code upstream to the Prometheus project, thus officially supporting the agent mode. This transition promotes asynchronous collaboration, where multiple open-source projects like Grafana Agent and OpenTelemetry Collector explore different approaches in parallel, eventually leading to robust solutions. With the agent concept now proven, the focus shifts to stabilizing Prometheus Agent, sharing its code with compatible projects like Thanos, and exploring new use cases. The open-source community is encouraged to contribute ideas to foster further innovation and collaboration in observability solutions.