Gatus vs Healthchecks
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Gatus
Developer-oriented health dashboard and status page
VS
Healthchecks
Cron job and scheduled task monitoring
| Feature | Gatus | Healthchecks |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 94 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Go | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 12,145 | ★ 10,358 |
| First released | 2019 | 2015 |
| Replaces | UptimeRobot, Pingdom | Pingdom |
What are Gatus and Healthchecks?
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
Healthchecks
Healthchecks is a self-hosted service that monitors cron jobs and scheduled tasks using dead man's switch pings. It targets administrators who need to know when a recurring job silently fails. It is deployed via Docker or a Django install.
- Dead man's switch for cron jobs
- Many notification integrations
- Per-check schedules and grace
- REST API
Gatus vs Healthchecks: key differences
Gatus is written in Go, while Healthchecks is built with Python. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Gatus versus BSD-3-Clause for Healthchecks. Gatus is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Healthchecks. Healthchecks is the more established project (first released 2015), while Gatus arrived in 2019.
Why pick each one
Choose Gatus if…
- Config as code
- Extremely lightweight
- Easy to version control
Watch out for
- No UI-based editing
- Basic visualizations
Choose Healthchecks if…
- Catches silently failing jobs
- Lots of notification channels
- Lightweight
Watch out for
- Narrow use case
- Not for metrics
Frequently asked questions
Is Gatus or Healthchecks better?
Neither is universally better. Gatus has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Gatus and Healthchecks free and open-source?
Yes. Gatus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Healthchecks under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Gatus and Healthchecks with Docker?
Gatus: yes. Healthchecks: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Gatus or Healthchecks?
Gatus has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Healthchecks. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.