Flame vs Glance
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted dashboards & startpages options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Flame | Glance |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 99 · Excellent |
| Category | Dashboards & Startpages | Dashboards & Startpages |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,551 | ★ 37,187 |
| First released | 2021 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Heimdall | Heimdall |
What are Flame and Glance?
Flame
Flame is a minimalist, self-hosted start page for organizing applications and bookmarks with a clean interface. It targets users who want a fast, simple home page. It is deployed via Docker.
- Clean minimalist interface
- App and bookmark management
- Docker label integration
- Built-in weather widget
Glance
Glance is a self-hosted dashboard that aggregates feeds, weather, calendars, and service widgets into a single page. It targets users who want an information-dense home page. It is deployed via Docker or a binary.
- Aggregates RSS, weather and more
- YAML configuration
- Lots of built-in widgets
- Single lightweight binary
Flame vs Glance: key differences
Flame is written in TypeScript, while Glance is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for Flame versus AGPL-3.0 for Glance. Flame is the more established project (first released 2021), while Glance arrived in 2024. Glance has the considerably larger community, at 37,187 GitHub stars versus 6,551.
Why pick each one
Choose Flame if…
- Simple and fast
- Lightweight
- Easy to set up
Watch out for
- Few advanced features
- Limited active development
Choose Glance if…
- Information-dense layout
- Very lightweight
- Easy config
Watch out for
- YAML-only configuration
- Young project
Frequently asked questions
Is Flame or Glance better?
Neither is universally better. Glance has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Flame and Glance free and open-source?
Yes. Flame is licensed under MIT and Glance under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Flame and Glance with Docker?
Flame: yes. Glance: yes.