Glances vs Pulse Monitor

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?
FeatureGlancesPulse Monitor
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseLGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarydocker
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 6,509
First released20122024
ReplacesDatadogDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

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

Choose Pulse Monitor if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 6.5k GitHub stars
Pulse Monitor details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Pulse Monitor 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 Pulse Monitor free and open-source?

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

Can I run Glances and Pulse Monitor with Docker?

Glances: yes. Pulse Monitor: yes.

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