Beszel vs Gatus
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Beszel
Lightweight server monitoring with a clean hub
VS
Gatus
Developer-oriented health dashboard and status page
| Feature | Beszel | Gatus |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 94 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 25,691 | ★ 12,145 |
| First released | 2024 | 2019 |
| Replaces | UptimeRobot | UptimeRobot, Pingdom |
What are Beszel and Gatus?
Beszel
Beszel is a lightweight server monitoring platform with a central hub and small agents tracking CPU, memory, disk, and Docker stats. It targets home labbers who want simple multi-host monitoring. It is deployed via Docker.
- Hub and agent architecture
- Tracks Docker container stats
- Configurable alerts
- Very low overhead
Gatus
Gatus is a developer-oriented health dashboard that monitors endpoints and exposes a status page driven by simple YAML config. It targets engineers wanting a config-as-code uptime monitor. It is deployed via Docker or a single binary.
- Configuration entirely as YAML
- Health checks and conditions
- Many alerting providers
- Tiny resource footprint
Beszel vs Gatus: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — MIT for Beszel versus Apache-2.0 for Gatus. Gatus is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Beszel. Gatus is the more established project (first released 2019), while Beszel arrived in 2024. Beszel has the considerably larger community, at 25,691 GitHub stars versus 12,145.
Why pick each one
Choose Beszel if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Simple multi-host view
- Easy setup
Watch out for
- Young project
- Fewer metrics than Netdata
Choose Gatus if…
- Config as code
- Extremely lightweight
- Easy to version control
Watch out for
- No UI-based editing
- Basic visualizations
Frequently asked questions
Is Beszel or Gatus better?
Neither is universally better. Beszel has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Beszel and Gatus free and open-source?
Yes. Beszel is licensed under MIT and Gatus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Beszel and Gatus with Docker?
Beszel: yes. Gatus: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Beszel or Gatus?
Gatus has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Beszel. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.