Cachet vs Phoenix Panel
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Cachet
Open-source status page system for communicating outages
VS
Phoenix Panel
Lightweight self-hosted status page and uptime monitor
| Feature | Cachet | Phoenix Panel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 76 · Good | 17 · At risk |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | PHP | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 15,248 | ★ 1 |
| First released | 2014 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Statuspage, Better Uptime | StatusPage, Better Uptime |
What are Cachet and Phoenix Panel?
Cachet
Cachet is an open-source status page system written in PHP (Laravel) for communicating downtime and incidents. It supports components, incident timelines, scheduled maintenance windows, metrics, and subscriber notifications.
- Public status page
- Incident timeline updates
- Scheduled maintenance windows
- Subscriber notifications
Phoenix Panel
Phoenix Panel is a small self-hosted monitoring tool that checks endpoints and renders a public status page. It is designed to be simple to deploy with minimal resource use.
- Public status pages
- Endpoint health checks
- Minimal footprint
- Simple configuration
Cachet vs Phoenix Panel: key differences
Both projects are written in PHP. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Cachet versus MIT for Phoenix Panel. Phoenix Panel is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Cachet. Cachet is the more established project (first released 2014), while Phoenix Panel arrived in 2022. Cachet has the considerably larger community, at 15,248 GitHub stars versus 1.
Why pick each one
Choose Cachet if…
- Polished public-facing page
- REST API
Watch out for
- Development has been intermittent
- Needs a database
Choose Phoenix Panel if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Frequently asked questions
Is Cachet or Phoenix Panel better?
Neither is universally better. Cachet has the larger community, while Phoenix Panel is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cachet and Phoenix Panel free and open-source?
Yes. Cachet is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Phoenix Panel under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cachet and Phoenix Panel with Docker?
Cachet: yes. Phoenix Panel: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Cachet or Phoenix Panel?
Phoenix Panel has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Cachet. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.