Glances vs Grafana Mimir
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Glances
Cross-platform system monitoring at a glance
VS
Grafana Mimir
Scalable long-term storage for Prometheus metrics
| Feature | Glances | Grafana Mimir |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 98 · Excellent | 90 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | LGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Python | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, binary | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 33,666 | ★ 5,238 |
| First released | 2012 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog, Chronosphere |
What are Glances and Grafana Mimir?
Glances
Glances is a cross-platform system monitoring tool that presents a wide range of host metrics in a terminal or web view. It targets administrators wanting a quick overview of a single machine. It is deployed via Docker, pip, or packages.
- Terminal and web monitoring views
- Wide range of metrics
- REST API and exporters
- Cross-platform support
Grafana Mimir
Grafana Mimir is an open-source, horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant time series database for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics. It is designed to store and query hundreds of millions of active series.
- Massive cardinality support
- Multi-tenant by design
- Fast query engine
- Object storage backend
Glances vs Grafana Mimir: key differences
Glances is written in Python, while Grafana Mimir is built with Go. Licensing differs — LGPL-3.0 for Glances versus AGPL-3.0 for Grafana Mimir. Glances is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Grafana Mimir. Glances is the more established project (first released 2012), while Grafana Mimir arrived in 2022. Glances has the considerably larger community, at 33,666 GitHub stars versus 5,238.
Why pick each one
Choose Glances if…
- Very easy to run
- Lightweight
- Good single-host overview
Watch out for
- Best for one host at a time
- Limited history
Choose Grafana Mimir if…
- Proven at billion-series scale
- Easier to operate than Cortex
Watch out for
- Resource intensive
- Complex for small homelabs
Frequently asked questions
Is Glances or Grafana Mimir better?
Glances is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Grafana Mimir if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Glances and Grafana Mimir free and open-source?
Yes. Glances is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and Grafana Mimir under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Glances and Grafana Mimir with Docker?
Glances: yes. Grafana Mimir: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Glances or Grafana Mimir?
Glances has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Grafana Mimir. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.