Glances vs Heimdall

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureGlancesHeimdall
CategoryMonitoring & StatusDashboards & Startpages
LicenseLGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePythonPHP
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarydocker
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 9,291
First released20122017
ReplacesDatadogHeimdall

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

  • Very easy to run
  • Lightweight
  • Good single-host overview
Glances details

Choose Heimdall if…

  • Very simple to set up
  • Clean look
  • Low maintenance
Heimdall details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Heimdall better?

Neither is universally better. Glances has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Glances and Heimdall free and open-source?

Yes. Glances is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and Heimdall under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Glances and Heimdall with Docker?

Glances: yes. Heimdall: yes.

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