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.
Gatus
Developer-oriented health dashboard and status page
VS
Blackbox Exporter
Probes endpoints over HTTP, TCP, DNS, and ICMP
| Feature | Gatus | Blackbox Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 94 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 12,145 | ★ 5,882 |
| First released | 2019 | 2016 |
| Replaces | UptimeRobot, Pingdom | Pingdom |
What are Gatus and Blackbox Exporter?
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
Blackbox Exporter
The Blackbox Exporter allows Prometheus to probe endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, ICMP, and gRPC. It is the standard way to perform black-box availability and latency monitoring with Prometheus.
- HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP probes
- TLS certificate checks
- Prometheus integration
- Multi-target probing
Gatus vs Blackbox Exporter: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Blackbox Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 64 MB for Gatus. Blackbox Exporter is the more established project (first released 2016), while Gatus arrived in 2019. Gatus has the considerably larger community, at 12,145 GitHub stars versus 5,882.
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 Blackbox Exporter if…
- Simple uptime monitoring
- Tiny footprint
Watch out for
- Needs Prometheus to be useful
- No standalone UI
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.
Which is lighter on resources, Gatus or Blackbox Exporter?
Blackbox Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 64 MB for Gatus. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.