Metric types.

also: counter metric · histogram metric · histogram metrics · gauge metric · counter metrics

Counters only go up, gauges go up and down, histograms bucket observations such as latencies, and summaries precompute quantiles.

the two-minute refresher

Counter: requests_total; graph rate(requests_total[5m]) for requests per second.
Gauge: queue_depth, active_connections, the current state.
Histogram: request_duration_seconds buckets; histogram_quantile(0.99, …) gives P99.
Prefer histograms to summaries: summaries can't be aggregated across instances.

also: counter metric · histogram metric · histogram metrics · gauge metric · counter metrics

Counters only go up, gauges go up and down, histograms bucket observations such as latencies, and summaries precompute quantiles.

Counter: requests_total; graph rate(requests_total[5m]) for requests per second.
Gauge: queue_depth, active_connections, the current state.
Histogram: request_duration_seconds buckets; histogram_quantile(0.99, …) gives P99.
Prefer histograms to summaries: summaries can't be aggregated across instances.