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Grafana Mimir

Grafana Mimir (grafana.com/docs/mimir) is Grafana Labs' open-source horizontally-scalable Prometheus-compatible metrics database. Originally forked from Cortex and subsequently rearchitected.

Why it's on this wiki

Mimir's recent rearchitecture is the explicit architectural template for Pyroscope 2.0 and is part of the same pattern Grafana Labs is applying across its observability stack. Per the Pyroscope 2.0 launch post:

"Mimir recently redesigned its architecture to eliminate write-path replication, decouple reads from writes, and make object storage the single source of truth. Pyroscope 2.0 applies similar architectural principles, adapted for the unique characteristics of profiling data."

(Source: sources/2026-04-22-grafana-introducing-pyroscope-2-0)

The three architectural moves

1. Eliminate write-path replication. No more N-way replication across ingesters on the ingest hot path. Durability is delegated to object storage.
2. Decouple reads from writes. Independent tiers; scale each according to its own workload.
3. Object storage as the single source of truth. Compute-storage separation; ingesters become stateless batch-buffers, queriers read directly from object storage.

These are the same moves now applied to Pyroscope 2.0 (profiling) and in progress for Loki (logs). See patterns/observability-db-rearchitecture-cortex-to-object-store for the unifying pattern.

Seen in

• sources/2026-04-22-grafana-introducing-pyroscope-2-0 — linked as the architectural template Pyroscope 2.0 follows. The Pyroscope launch post links Mimir's own rearchitecture post for the full quantitative story.

Future ingest candidates

The Mimir rearchitecture blog post ("The next generation of Grafana Mimir: Inside Mimir's redesigned architecture for increased reliability") is linked from the Pyroscope 2.0 post and contains the quantitative benchmarks this page could cite directly. Worth ingesting as a dedicated source.

Related

• systems/cortex — the architectural ancestor Mimir was forked from and has since retired.
• systems/pyroscope-2 — continuous-profiles DB that inherits Mimir's rearchitecture template.
• systems/loki — logs DB; same Cortex lineage, similar trajectory.
• systems/grafana — the dashboard that queries Mimir for metrics panels.
• systems/prometheus — the wire protocol Mimir is compatible with.
• concepts/write-path-replication
• concepts/compute-storage-separation
• patterns/decouple-reads-from-writes-at-storage-layer
• patterns/observability-db-rearchitecture-cortex-to-object-store
• companies/grafana