Cortex vs Glances
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Glances
Cross-platform system monitoring at a glance
| Feature | Cortex | Glances |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 90 · Excellent | 98 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, bare-metal, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,865 | ★ 33,655 |
| First released | 2016 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Datadog, Grafana Cloud | Datadog |
What are Cortex and Glances?
Cortex
Cortex provides a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant, long-term store for Prometheus metrics. It offers a single API endpoint for querying and writing time series data across clusters.
- Multi-tenant metrics storage
- Horizontally scalable
- Prometheus-compatible API
- Long-term retention
Glances
Glances is a cross-platform system monitoring tool that presents a wide range of host metrics in a terminal or web view. It targets administrators wanting a quick overview of a single machine. It is deployed via Docker, pip, or packages.
- Terminal and web monitoring views
- Wide range of metrics
- REST API and exporters
- Cross-platform support
Cortex vs Glances: key differences
Cortex is written in Go, while Glances is built with Python. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Cortex versus LGPL-3.0 for Glances. Glances is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Cortex. Glances is the more established project (first released 2012), while Cortex arrived in 2016. Glances has the considerably larger community, at 33,655 GitHub stars versus 5,865.
Why pick each one
Choose Cortex if…
- Built for very large scale
- True multi-tenancy
Watch out for
- Operationally heavy
- Overkill for small setups
Choose Glances if…
- Very easy to run
- Lightweight
- Good single-host overview
Watch out for
- Best for one host at a time
- Limited history
Frequently asked questions
Is Cortex or Glances better?
Glances is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Cortex if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Cortex and Glances free and open-source?
Yes. Cortex is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Glances under LGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cortex and Glances with Docker?
Cortex: yes. Glances: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Cortex or Glances?
Glances has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Cortex. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.