1---
2title: Getting Started
3type: docs
4menu: thanos
5weight: 1
6---
7
8# Getting started
9
10Thanos provides a global query view, high availability, data backup with historical, cheap data access as its core features in a single binary.
11
12Those features can be deployed independently of each other. This allows you to have a subset of Thanos features ready
13for immediate benefit or testing, while also making it flexible for gradual roll outs in more complex environments.
14
15In this quick-start guide, we will explain:
16
17* How to ask questions, build and contribute to Thanos.
18* A few common ways of deploying Thanos.
19* Links for further reading.
20
21Thanos will work in cloud native environments as well as more traditional ones. Some users run Thanos in Kubernetes while others on the bare metal.
22
23## Dependencies
24
25Thanos aims for a simple deployment and maintenance model. The only dependencies are:
26
27* One or more [Prometheus](https://prometheus.io) v2.2.1+ installations with persistent disk.
28* Optional object storage
29  * Thanos is able to use [many different storage providers](storage.md), with the ability to add more providers as necessary.
30
31## Get Thanos!
32
33You can find the latest Thanos release [here](https://github.com/thanos-io/thanos/releases).
34
35Main should be stable and usable. Every commit to main builds docker image named `main-<data>-<sha>` in
36[quay.io/thanos/thanos](https://quay.io/repository/thanos/thanos) and [thanosio/thanos dockerhub (mirror)](https://hub.docker.com/r/thanosio/thanos)
37
38We also perform minor releases every 6 weeks.
39
40During that, we build tarballs for major platforms and release docker images.
41
42See [release process docs](release-process.md) for details.
43
44## Building from source:
45
46Thanos is built purely in [Golang](https://golang.org/), thus allowing to run Thanos on various x64 operating systems.
47
48If you want to build Thanos from source you would need a working installation of the Go 1.16+ [toolchain](https://github.com/golang/tools) (`GOPATH`, `PATH=${GOPATH}/bin:${PATH}`).
49
50Thanos can be downloaded and built by running:
51
52```bash
53go get github.com/thanos-io/thanos/cmd/thanos
54```
55
56The `thanos` binary should now be in your `$PATH` and is the only thing required to deploy any of its components.
57
58## Contributing
59
60Contributions are very welcome! See our [CONTRIBUTING.md](/CONTRIBUTING.md) for more information.
61
62## Community
63
64Thanos is an open source project and we value and welcome new contributors and members
65of the community. Here are ways to get in touch with the community:
66
67* Slack: [#thanos](https://slack.cncf.io/)
68* Issue Tracker: [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/thanos-io/thanos/issues)
69
70## Maintainers
71
72See [MAINTAINERS.md](/MAINTAINERS.md).
73
74## Community Thanos Kubernetes Applications
75
76Thanos is **not** tied to Kubernetes. However, Kubernetes, Thanos and Prometheus are part of the CNCF so the most popular applications are on top of Kubernetes.
77
78Our friendly community maintains a few different ways of installing Thanos on Kubernetes. See those below:
79
80* [prometheus-operator](https://github.com/coreos/prometheus-operator): Prometheus operator has support for deploying Prometheus with Thanos
81* [kube-thanos](https://github.com/thanos-io/kube-thanos): Jsonnet based Kubernetes templates.
82* [Community Helm charts](https://artifacthub.io/packages/search?ts_query_web=thanos)
83
84If you want to add yourself to this list, let us know!
85
86## Deploying Thanos
87
88* [WIP] Detailed, free, in-browser interactive tutorial [as Katacoda Thanos Course](https://katacoda.com/thanos/courses/thanos/1-globalview)
89* [Quick Tutorial](./quick-tutorial.md) on Thanos website.
90
91## Operating
92
93See up to date [jsonnet mixins](https://github.com/thanos-io/thanos/tree/main/mixin/README.md)
94We also have example Grafana dashboards [here](/examples/dashboards/dashboards.md) and some [alerts](/examples/alerts/alerts.md) to get you started.
95
96## Talks
97
98* 12.2020: [Absorbing Thanos Infinite Powers for Multi-Cluster Telemetry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nx2BFyr7qQ)
99* 12.2020: [Turn It Up to a Million: Ingesting Millions of Metrics with Thanos Receive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MJqdJq41Ms)
100* 02.2018: [Very first Prometheus Meetup Slides](https://www.slideshare.net/BartomiejPotka/thanos-global-durable-prometheus-monitoring)
101* 02.2019: [FOSDEM + demo](https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/thanos_transforming_prometheus_to_a_global_scale_in_a_seven_simple_steps/)
102* 03.2019: [Alibaba Cloud user story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS6zMksfipc)
103* 09.2019: [CloudNative Warsaw Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cKpbJY3jIAtr03M-zcNujwBA38_LDj7NqE4LjNfvglE/edit?usp=sharing)
104* 11.2019: [CloudNative Deep Dive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQN0N14HXPM)
105* 11.2019: [CloudNative Intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0JgWlTc60Q)
106* 2019: [Prometheus in Practice: HA with Thanos](https://www.slideshare.net/ThomasRiley45/prometheus-in-practice-high-availability-with-thanos-devopsdays-edinburgh-2019)
107
108## Blog posts
109
110* 2020:
111
112  * [Banzai Cloud user story](https://banzaicloud.com/blog/multi-cluster-monitoring/)
113  * [Monitoring the Beat microservices: A tale of evolution](https://build.thebeat.co/monitoring-the-beat-microservices-a-tale-of-evolution-4e246882606e)
114
115* 2019:
116
117  * [Metric monitoring architecture](https://improbable.io/blog/thanos-architecture-at-improbable)
118  * [Red Hat user story](https://blog.openshift.com/federated-prometheus-with-thanos-receive/)
119  * [HelloFresh blog posts part 1](https://engineering.hellofresh.com/monitoring-at-hellofresh-part-1-architecture-677b4bd6b728)
120  * [HelloFresh blog posts part 2](https://engineering.hellofresh.com/monitoring-at-hellofresh-part-2-operating-the-monitoring-system-8175cd939c1d)
121  * [Thanos deployment](https://www.metricfire.com/blog/ha-kubernetes-monitoring-using-prometheus-and-thanos)
122  * [Taboola user story](https://engineering.taboola.com/monitoring-and-metering-scale/)
123  * [Thanos via Prometheus Operator](https://kkc.github.io/2019/02/10/prometheus-operator-with-thanos/)
124
125* 2018:
126
127  * [Introduction blog post](https://improbable.io/games/blog/thanos-prometheus-at-scale)
128  * [Monzo user story](https://monzo.com/blog/2018/07/27/how-we-monitor-monzo)
129  * [Banzai Cloud hand's on](https://banzaicloud.com/blog/hands-on-thanos/)
130  * [uSwitch user story](https://medium.com/uswitch-labs/making-prometheus-more-awesome-with-thanos-fbec8c6c28ad)
131  * [Thanos usage](https://www.infracloud.io/blogs/thanos-ha-scalable-prometheus/)
132
133## Integrations
134
135See [Integrations page](./integrations.md).
136
137## Testing Thanos on Single Host
138
139We don't recommend running Thanos on a single node on production.
140Thanos is designed and built to run as a distributed system.
141Vanilla Prometheus might be totally enough for small setups.
142
143However, in case you want to play and run Thanos components
144on a single node, we recommend following the port layout:
145
146| Component      | Interface               | Port  |
147| -------------- | ----------------------- | ----- |
148| Sidecar        | gRPC                    | 10901 |
149| Sidecar        | HTTP                    | 10902 |
150| Query          | gRPC                    | 10903 |
151| Query          | HTTP                    | 10904 |
152| Store          | gRPC                    | 10905 |
153| Store          | HTTP                    | 10906 |
154| Receive        | gRPC (store API)        | 10907 |
155| Receive        | HTTP (remote write API) | 10908 |
156| Receive        | HTTP                    | 10909 |
157| Rule           | gRPC                    | 10910 |
158| Rule           | HTTP                    | 10911 |
159| Compact        | HTTP                    | 10912 |
160| Query Frontend | HTTP                    | 10913 |
161
162You can see example one-node setup [here](/scripts/quickstart.sh).
163