Glances vs Metabase

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?
FeatureGlancesMetabase
CategoryMonitoring & StatusWeb Analytics
LicenseLGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonClojure
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarydocker, bare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 48,597
First released20122015
ReplacesDatadogTableau, Looker

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

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

Choose Metabase if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 48.6k GitHub stars
  • Written in Clojure
Metabase details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Metabase better?

Neither is universally better. Metabase has the larger community, while Glances is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Glances and Metabase free and open-source?

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

Can I run Glances and Metabase with Docker?

Glances: yes. Metabase: yes.

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