diff --git a/gradle/solr/packaging.gradle b/gradle/solr/packaging.gradle
index 3b1ea92d7ed..39b4bc68ebc 100644
--- a/gradle/solr/packaging.gradle
+++ b/gradle/solr/packaging.gradle
@@ -76,7 +76,8 @@ configure(allprojects.findAll {project -> project.path.startsWith(":solr:contrib
             return true
           }
         }
-        return externalLibs - configurations.solrPlatformLibs
+        // libExt has logging libs, which we don't want.  Lets users decide what they want.
+        return externalLibs - configurations.solrPlatformLibs - project(':solr:server').configurations.getByName('libExt')
       }, {
         exclude "lucene-*"
         into "lib"
diff --git a/solr/CHANGES.txt b/solr/CHANGES.txt
index f1eb0c07c70..a379b1e5d11 100644
--- a/solr/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/solr/CHANGES.txt
@@ -42,8 +42,6 @@ Improvements
 
 * SOLR-14880: Support coreRootDirectory setting when create new cores from command line, in standalone mode (Alexandre Rafalovitch)
 
-* SOLR-14972: Change default port of prometheus exporter to 8989 because it clashed with default embedded zookeeper port (janhoy)
-
 * SOLR-14926, SOLR-14926, SOLR-13506: Modernize and clean up search results clustering contrib. This issue upgrades
   the clustering contrib to the new Carrot2 4.x line, dropping several CVE-prone dependencies along the way.
   The parameters and configuration of the contrib extensions have changed. The documentation in Solr ref guide
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/CHANGES.md b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/CHANGES.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..42deac6baec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/CHANGES.md
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+This file lists release notes for this module.
+Prior to version 9, changes were in Solr's CHANGES.txt
+
+9.0.0
+======================
+
+Improvements
+----------------------
+* SOLR-14972: Change default port of prometheus exporter to 8989 
+  because it clashed with default embedded zookeeper port (janhoy)
+
+Other Changes
+----------------------
+* SOLR-14915: Reduced dependencies from Solr server down to just SolrJ.  Don't add WEB-INF/lib.
+  * Can run via gradle, "gradlew run"
+  * Has own log4j2.xml now
+  * Was missing some dependencies in lib/; now has all except SolrJ & logging.
+  (David Smiley, Houston Putman)
+
+* SOLR-14957: Add Prometheus Exporter to docker PATH. Fix classpath issues. (Houston Putman)
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter
index b601a785117..e53c46149db 100755
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter
@@ -82,10 +82,6 @@ for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../dist/solrj-lib -name '*.jar')
 do
   CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
 done
-for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../dist -name 'solr-core-*.jar')
-do
-  CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
-done
 for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../dist -name 'solr-solrj-*.jar')
 do
   CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
@@ -94,14 +90,6 @@ for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../dist -name 'solr-prometheus-exporter-*.jar')
 do
   CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
 done
-for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/lucene-libs -name '*.jar')
-do
-  CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
-done
-for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../server/solr-webapp/webapp/WEB-INF/lib -name '*.jar')
-do
-  CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
-done
 for JAR in $(find "$BASEDIR"/../../server/lib/ext -name '*.jar')
 do
   CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH":"$JAR"
@@ -123,8 +111,6 @@ else
     GC_TUNE="$GC_TUNE"
 fi
 
-EXTRA_JVM_ARGUMENTS="-Dlog4j.configurationFile=file:"$BASEDIR"/../../server/resources/log4j2-console.xml"
-
 # For Cygwin, switch paths to Windows format before running java
 if $cygwin; then
   [ -n "$CLASSPATH" ] && CLASSPATH=`cygpath --path --windows "$CLASSPATH"`
@@ -163,7 +149,6 @@ exec "$JAVACMD" \
   $JAVA_MEM_OPTS \
   $GC_TUNE \
   $JAVA_OPTS \
-  $EXTRA_JVM_ARGUMENTS \
   $ZK_CREDS_AND_ACLS \
   -classpath "$CLASSPATH" \
   -Dapp.name="solr-exporter" \
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter.cmd b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter.cmd
index efa92a1608e..113306a84ee 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter.cmd
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/bin/solr-exporter.cmd
@@ -71,8 +71,7 @@ if "%JAVACMD%"=="" set JAVACMD=java
 
 if "%REPO%"=="" set REPO=%BASEDIR%\lib
 
-set CLASSPATH=%REPO%\*;%BASEDIR%\conf;%BASEDIR%\..\..\dist\solrj-lib\*;%BASEDIR%\..\..\dist\*;%BASEDIR%\lucene-libs\*;%BASEDIR%\..\..\server\solr-webapp\webapp\WEB-INF\lib\*;%BASEDIR%\..\..\server\lib\ext\*
-set EXTRA_JVM_ARGUMENTS=-Dlog4j.configurationFile=file:///%BASEDIR%\..\..\server\resources\log4j2-console.xml
+set CLASSPATH=%REPO%\*;%BASEDIR%\conf;%BASEDIR%\..\..\dist\solrj-lib\*;%BASEDIR%\..\..\dist\*;%BASEDIR%\..\..\server\lib\ext\*
 
 @REM Convert Environment Variables to Command Line Options
 set EXPORTER_ARGS=
@@ -88,7 +87,7 @@ goto endInit
 @REM Reaching here means variables are defined and arguments have been captured
 :endInit
 
-%JAVACMD% %JAVA_MEM% %GC_TUNE% %JAVA_OPTS% %EXTRA_JVM_ARGUMENTS% %ZK_CREDS_AND_ACLS% -classpath "%CLASSPATH_PREFIX%;%CLASSPATH%" -Dapp.name="solr-exporter" -Dapp.repo="%REPO%" -Dbasedir="%BASEDIR%" org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter.SolrExporter %EXPORTER_ARGS% %CMD_LINE_ARGS%
+%JAVACMD% %JAVA_MEM% %GC_TUNE% %JAVA_OPTS% %ZK_CREDS_AND_ACLS% -classpath "%CLASSPATH_PREFIX%;%CLASSPATH%" -Dapp.name="solr-exporter" -Dapp.repo="%REPO%" -Dbasedir="%BASEDIR%" org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter.SolrExporter %EXPORTER_ARGS% %CMD_LINE_ARGS%
 if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto error
 goto end
 
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/build.gradle b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/build.gradle
index 13a9748bc44..ca4f625d073 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/build.gradle
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/build.gradle
@@ -15,14 +15,13 @@
  * limitations under the License.
  */
 
-
 apply plugin: 'java-library'
+// this is actually more of an 'application' but we don't want all of what Gradle adds
 
 description = 'Prometheus exporter for exposing metrics from Solr using Metrics API and Search API'
 
 dependencies {
-  implementation project(':solr:core')
-  implementation project(':lucene:analysis:common')
+  implementation project(':solr:solrj')
 
   implementation ('io.prometheus:simpleclient')
   implementation ('io.prometheus:simpleclient_common')
@@ -31,17 +30,57 @@ dependencies {
     exclude group: "org.jruby.joni", module: "joni"
   })
   implementation ('net.sourceforge.argparse4j:argparse4j')
+  implementation ('com.github.ben-manes.caffeine:caffeine', {
+    exclude group: "org.checkerframework", module: "checker-qual"
+    exclude group: "com.google.errorprone", module: "error_prone_annotations"
+  })
 
-  testImplementation ('org.apache.httpcomponents:httpcore')
-  testImplementation ('org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-servlet')
+  runtimeOnly 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-api'
+  runtimeOnly 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core'
+  runtimeOnly 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl'
+  runtimeOnly 'com.lmax:disruptor'
 
   testImplementation project(':solr:test-framework')
 }
 
-// Add two folders to default packaging.
+ext {
+  mainClass = 'org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter.SolrExporter'
+}
+
+task run(type: JavaExec) {
+  group = 'application'
+  description = 'Run the main class with JavaExecTask'
+  main = project.ext.mainClass
+  classpath = sourceSets.main.runtimeClasspath
+  systemProperties = ["log4j.configurationFile":"file:conf/log4j2.xml"]
+}
+
+jar {
+  manifest {
+    attributes('Main-Class': project.ext.mainClass)
+  }
+}
+
 assemblePackaging {
+  // Add two folders to default packaging.
   from(projectDir, {
     include "bin/**"
     include "conf/**"
   })
+  // Add all libs except those provided by SolrJ & Logging
+  from ({
+    def externalLibs = configurations.runtimeLibs.copyRecursive { dep ->
+      if (dep instanceof org.gradle.api.artifacts.ProjectDependency) {
+        return !dep.dependencyProject.path.startsWith(":solr")
+      } else {
+        return true
+      }
+    }
+    return externalLibs - project(':solr:server').configurations.getByName('libExt')
+  }, {
+    into "lib"
+  })
+
+
+  into deps
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/conf/log4j2.xml b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/conf/log4j2.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..47f533f1054
--- /dev/null
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/conf/log4j2.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+  -->
+
+<!-- Use this file for logging exlusively to the console, useful for
+     some development tasks. Should not be used for production -->
+<!-- Default production configuration is asnychronous logging -->
+<Configuration>
+  <Appenders>
+    <Console name="STDERR" target="SYSTEM_ERR">
+      <PatternLayout>
+        <Pattern>
+          %maxLen{%-5p - %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS}; %c; %m%notEmpty{ =>%ex{short}}}{10240}%n
+        </Pattern>
+      </PatternLayout>
+    </Console>
+  </Appenders>
+  <Loggers>
+    <!-- Use <AsyncLogger/<AsyncRoot and <Logger/<Root for asynchronous logging or synchonous logging respectively -->
+    <AsyncRoot level="INFO">
+      <AppenderRef ref="STDERR"/>
+    </AsyncRoot>
+  </Loggers>
+</Configuration>
+
+
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/MetricsConfiguration.java b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/MetricsConfiguration.java
index f976f3e564d..a4e630dbcbf 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/MetricsConfiguration.java
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/MetricsConfiguration.java
@@ -17,14 +17,27 @@
 
 package org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter;
 
+import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
+import javax.xml.xpath.XPath;
+import javax.xml.xpath.XPathConstants;
+import javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactory;
+import java.io.File;
+import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
+import java.nio.file.Path;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.List;
 
 import net.thisptr.jackson.jq.exception.JsonQueryException;
-import org.apache.solr.core.XmlConfigFile;
+import org.slf4j.Logger;
+import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+import org.w3c.dom.Document;
 import org.w3c.dom.Node;
+import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
 
 public class MetricsConfiguration {
+  private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MethodHandles.lookup().lookupClass());
 
   private final PrometheusExporterSettings settings;
 
@@ -66,13 +79,36 @@ public class MetricsConfiguration {
     return searchConfiguration;
   }
 
-  public static MetricsConfiguration from(XmlConfigFile config) throws Exception {
-    Node settings = config.getNode("/config/settings", false);
+  public static MetricsConfiguration from(String resource) throws Exception {
+    // See solr-core XmlConfigFile
+    final DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
+    try {
+      dbf.setXIncludeAware(true);
+      dbf.setNamespaceAware(true);
+    } catch (UnsupportedOperationException e) {
+      log.warn("{} XML parser doesn't support XInclude option", resource);
+    }
 
-    Node pingConfig = config.getNode("/config/rules/ping", false);
-    Node metricsConfig = config.getNode("/config/rules/metrics", false);
-    Node collectionsConfig = config.getNode("/config/rules/collections", false);
-    Node searchConfiguration = config.getNode("/config/rules/search", false);
+    Document document;
+    Path path = Path.of(resource);
+    if (Files.exists(path)) {
+      document = dbf.newDocumentBuilder().parse(path.toUri().toASCIIString());
+    } else {
+      try (InputStream configInputStream = MethodHandles.lookup().lookupClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(resource.replace(File.separatorChar, '/'))) {
+        document = dbf.newDocumentBuilder().parse(configInputStream);
+      }
+    }
+
+    return from(document);
+  }
+
+  public static MetricsConfiguration from(Document config) throws Exception {
+    Node settings = getNode(config, "/config/settings");
+
+    Node pingConfig = getNode(config, "/config/rules/ping");
+    Node metricsConfig = getNode(config, "/config/rules/metrics");
+    Node collectionsConfig = getNode(config, "/config/rules/collections");
+    Node searchConfiguration = getNode(config, "/config/rules/search");
 
     return new MetricsConfiguration(
         settings == null ? PrometheusExporterSettings.builder().build() : PrometheusExporterSettings.from(settings),
@@ -83,6 +119,28 @@ public class MetricsConfiguration {
     );
   }
 
+  static final XPathFactory xpathFactory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
+
+  private static Node getNode(Document doc, String path) {
+    // Copied from solr-core XmlConfigFile.getNode with simplifications
+    XPath xpath = xpathFactory.newXPath();
+    String xstr = path; //normalize(path);
+
+    try {
+      NodeList nodes = (NodeList) xpath.evaluate(xstr, doc,
+          XPathConstants.NODESET);
+      if (nodes == null || 0 == nodes.getLength()) {
+        return null;
+      }
+      if (1 < nodes.getLength()) {
+        throw new RuntimeException("more than one value");
+      }
+      return nodes.item(0);
+    } catch (Exception e) {
+      throw new RuntimeException("Error in xpath:" + xstr, e);
+    }
+  }
+
   private static List<MetricsQuery> toMetricQueries(Node node) throws JsonQueryException {
     if (node == null) {
       return Collections.emptyList();
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/SolrExporter.java b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/SolrExporter.java
index d3da263fb77..b4b9f565201 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/SolrExporter.java
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/exporter/SolrExporter.java
@@ -19,8 +19,6 @@ package org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles;
 import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
-import java.nio.file.Path;
-import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
 
@@ -32,8 +30,6 @@ import net.sourceforge.argparse4j.inf.ArgumentParserException;
 import net.sourceforge.argparse4j.inf.Namespace;
 import org.apache.solr.common.util.ExecutorUtil;
 import org.apache.solr.common.util.IOUtils;
-import org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader;
-import org.apache.solr.core.XmlConfigFile;
 import org.apache.solr.prometheus.collector.MetricsCollectorFactory;
 import org.apache.solr.prometheus.collector.SchedulerMetricsCollector;
 import org.apache.solr.prometheus.scraper.SolrCloudScraper;
@@ -202,7 +198,7 @@ public class SolrExporter {
           res.getInt(ARG_NUM_THREADS_DEST),
           res.getInt(ARG_SCRAPE_INTERVAL_DEST),
           scrapeConfiguration,
-          loadMetricsConfiguration(Paths.get(res.getString(ARG_CONFIG_DEST))));
+          loadMetricsConfiguration(res.getString(ARG_CONFIG_DEST)));
 
       log.info("Starting Solr Prometheus Exporting");
       solrExporter.start();
@@ -214,12 +210,11 @@ public class SolrExporter {
     }
   }
 
-  private static MetricsConfiguration loadMetricsConfiguration(Path configPath) {
-    try (SolrResourceLoader loader = new SolrResourceLoader(configPath.getParent())) {
-      XmlConfigFile config = new XmlConfigFile(loader, configPath.getFileName().toString(), null, null);
-      return MetricsConfiguration.from(config);
+  private static MetricsConfiguration loadMetricsConfiguration(String configPath) {
+    try {
+      return MetricsConfiguration.from(configPath);
     } catch (Exception e) {
-      log.error("Could not load scrape configuration from {}", configPath.toAbsolutePath());
+      log.error("Could not load scrape configuration from {}", configPath);
       throw new RuntimeException(e);
     }
   }
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/scraper/SolrCloudScraper.java b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/scraper/SolrCloudScraper.java
index e4b98e75811..5efedc36af7 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/scraper/SolrCloudScraper.java
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/java/org/apache/solr/prometheus/scraper/SolrCloudScraper.java
@@ -20,13 +20,12 @@ import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
-import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
 import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
 import java.util.function.Function;
 import java.util.stream.Collectors;
 
-import com.google.common.cache.Cache;
-import com.google.common.cache.CacheBuilder;
+import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.Cache;
+import com.github.benmanes.caffeine.cache.Caffeine;
 import org.apache.solr.client.solrj.impl.CloudSolrClient;
 import org.apache.solr.client.solrj.impl.HttpSolrClient;
 import org.apache.solr.common.cloud.DocCollection;
@@ -42,7 +41,7 @@ public class SolrCloudScraper extends SolrScraper {
   private final CloudSolrClient solrClient;
   private final SolrClientFactory solrClientFactory;
 
-  private Cache<String, HttpSolrClient> hostClientCache = CacheBuilder.newBuilder().build();
+  private Cache<String, HttpSolrClient> hostClientCache = Caffeine.newBuilder().build();
 
   public SolrCloudScraper(CloudSolrClient solrClient, ExecutorService executor, SolrClientFactory solrClientFactory) {
     super(executor);
@@ -83,15 +82,8 @@ public class SolrCloudScraper extends SolrScraper {
 
   private Map<String, HttpSolrClient> createHttpSolrClients() throws IOException {
     return getBaseUrls().stream()
-        .map(url -> {
-          try {
-            return hostClientCache.get(url, () -> solrClientFactory.createStandaloneSolrClient(url));
-          } catch (ExecutionException e) {
-            throw new RuntimeException(e);
-          }
-        })
+        .map(url -> hostClientCache.get(url, solrClientFactory::createStandaloneSolrClient))
         .collect(Collectors.toMap(HttpSolrClient::getBaseURL, Function.identity()));
-
   }
 
   @Override
diff --git a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/test/org/apache/solr/prometheus/utils/Helpers.java b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/test/org/apache/solr/prometheus/utils/Helpers.java
index 5dcfb715335..6870cb2aacc 100644
--- a/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/test/org/apache/solr/prometheus/utils/Helpers.java
+++ b/solr/contrib/prometheus-exporter/src/test/org/apache/solr/prometheus/utils/Helpers.java
@@ -19,28 +19,19 @@ package org.apache.solr.prometheus.utils;
 
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
-import java.nio.file.Path;
-import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.Objects;
 
 import org.apache.solr.SolrTestCaseJ4;
 import org.apache.solr.client.solrj.SolrClient;
 import org.apache.solr.client.solrj.SolrServerException;
 import org.apache.solr.client.solrj.request.ContentStreamUpdateRequest;
-import org.apache.solr.core.SolrResourceLoader;
-import org.apache.solr.core.XmlConfigFile;
 import org.apache.solr.prometheus.PrometheusExporterTestBase;
 import org.apache.solr.prometheus.exporter.MetricsConfiguration;
 
 public class Helpers {
 
-  public static MetricsConfiguration loadConfiguration(String path) throws Exception {
-    Path configPath = Paths.get(path);
-
-    try (SolrResourceLoader loader = new SolrResourceLoader(configPath.getParent())) {
-      XmlConfigFile config = new XmlConfigFile(loader, configPath.getFileName().toString());
-      return MetricsConfiguration.from(config);
-    }
+  public static MetricsConfiguration loadConfiguration(String pathRsrc) throws Exception {
+    return MetricsConfiguration.from(SolrTestCaseJ4.getFile(pathRsrc).getPath());
   }
 
   public static void indexAllDocs(SolrClient client) throws IOException, SolrServerException {