Beszel vs Grafana

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureBeszelGrafana
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageGoTypeScript
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, bare-metal, helm
GitHub stars★ 24,108★ 76,153
First released20242014
ReplacesUptimeRobotDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Beszel if…

  • Extremely lightweight
  • Simple multi-host view
  • Easy setup
Beszel details

Choose Grafana if…

  • Beautiful flexible dashboards
  • Broad data source support
  • Strong community
Grafana details

Frequently asked questions

Is Beszel or Grafana better?

Neither is universally better. Grafana has the larger community, while Beszel is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Beszel and Grafana free and open-source?

Yes. Beszel is licensed under MIT and Grafana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Beszel and Grafana with Docker?

Beszel: yes. Grafana: yes.

Related comparisons