SHSelfHostIndex

Gatus vs Blackbox Exporter

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?
GA Gatus Developer-oriented health dashboard and status page VS BL Blackbox Exporter Probes endpoints over HTTP, TCP, DNS, and ICMP
FeatureGatusBlackbox Exporter
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM64 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 11,748★ 5,818
First released20192016
ReplacesUptimeRobot, PingdomPingdom

Why pick each one

Choose Gatus if…

  • Config as code
  • Extremely lightweight
  • Easy to version control
Gatus details

Choose Blackbox Exporter if…

  • Simple uptime monitoring
  • Tiny footprint
Blackbox Exporter details

Frequently asked questions

Is Gatus or Blackbox Exporter 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 Blackbox Exporter free and open-source?

Yes. Gatus is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Blackbox Exporter under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Gatus and Blackbox Exporter with Docker?

Gatus: yes. Blackbox Exporter: yes.

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