# Install cortex with Homebrew Long term storage for Prometheus. Version 1.21.1 via Homebrew; verified 2026-06-06. ## Install ```sh sudo av install brew:cortex ``` Additional install commands: ### macOS - Homebrew (100%): ```sh brew install cortex ``` Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata ## Package facts - **Package key:** brew:cortex - **Package manager:** Homebrew - **Package manager page:** - **Version:** 1.21.1 - **Source summary:** Long term storage for Prometheus - **Homepage:** - **Repository:** - **Upstream docs:** - **License:** Apache-2.0 - **Source archive:** - **Last updated:** 2026-06-06T00:57:42Z - **Generated:** 2026-07-08T07:18:31+00:00 ## Executables - cortex (cli) - cortex (alias) ## Build dependencies - go ## Install behavior - Post-install hook: not defined - Service: declared - Bottle: available on arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, sonoma, x86_64_linux ## Freshness - Page generated: 2026-07-08 - Package-manager version: 1.21.1 - Package-manager updated: 2026-06-06 - Local data: ok - Upstream repository: https://github.com/cortexproject/cortex - Upstream latest detected: v1.21.1 (current) ## Project history and usage Cortex is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant long-term storage system for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics. It is normally deployed as a server-side observability backend rather than used as a local CLI tool. ### Project history The official Cortex documentation states that the project was started by Tom Wilkie and Prometheus co-founder Julius Volz in June 2016. The public GitHub repository was created later in 2016, and the README describes a system built for scale, high availability, multi-tenancy, and long-term object storage. ### Adoption history Cortex's adoption history is tied to Prometheus remote write and cloud-native observability. The official documentation's further-reading section traces public talks from PromCon 2016 through KubeCon sessions, and lists managed or production-oriented material from Grafana Labs, AWS, CNCF, and other operators. ### How it is used Operators deploy Cortex as single-binary or microservices components. Prometheus instances push samples via remote write, while Cortex distributes, ingests, stores, and queries data across long-term storage backends such as S3, GCS, Swift, and Azure. ### Why package nerds care Cortex matters to package and infrastructure maintainers because it turns Prometheus from a single-node time-series database into a multi-tenant distributed system. Packaging is only a small part of the story; configuration, Kubernetes deployment, storage backends, ring state, and service topology dominate real-world distribution. ### Timeline - 2016: Cortex project started in June by Tom Wilkie and Julius Volz. - 2016: Public GitHub repository created in September. - 2018: Official documentation lists CNCF and KubeCon materials presenting Cortex as scalable Prometheus. - 2026: Official GitHub releases include the v1.21.x series. ### Related projects - Related projects include Prometheus, OpenTelemetry Metrics, Thanos, Grafana Mimir, Alertmanager, and cloud object stores used for long-term metrics storage. ### Sources - - - - - - ## Security Notes formula declares a Homebrew service. - **Geiger risk:** orange / medium - formula declares a Homebrew service ## Source Database Details - **Source Database:** Homebrew formula API - **Tap:** homebrew/core - **Full Name:** cortex - **Version Scheme:** 0 - **Revision:** 0 - **Head Version:** HEAD - **Conflicts With:** cortexso - **Bottle Stable Root URL:** - **Deprecated:** no - **Disabled:** no - **Keg Only:** no - **URL Keys:** head, stable ## Related links - [Secret-risk packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/secret-risk-packages/) - Has protected-tool coverage, approval-gate, or non-low Geiger security signals. - [Terminal utility packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/terminal-utilities/) - Matched terminal and command-line workflow metadata. - [Text processing packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/text-processing-tools/) - Matched text, document, or structured-data processing metadata. - [Networking and protocol packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/networking-protocol-tools/) - Matched network, protocol, or remote-service metadata. - [go](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/go/) - Build dependency declared by Homebrew. - [fluent-bit](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/fluent-bit/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, metrics, observability. - [telegraf](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/telegraf/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, metrics, observability. - [filebeat](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/filebeat/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, observability. - [victoriametrics](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/victoriametrics/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, metrics, prometheus. - [influxdb](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/influxdb/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, metrics. - [loki](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/loki/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, observability. - [victorialogs](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/victorialogs/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, observability. - [adios2](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/adios2/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data. ## Combined YAML source View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/cortex.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/cortex.yml) ## Sources - Nucleus package database - Geiger risk classifier - package-page enrichment - curated package history - package version freshness - av.db category and tag curation - package relationship graph - cross-ecosystem install command graph