Glances vs Monit

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?
FeatureGlancesMonit
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseLGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonC
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB16 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarybare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 200
First released20122001
ReplacesDatadogDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

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

Choose Monit if…

  • Extremely lightweight
  • Self-healing actions
Monit details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Monit 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 Monit free and open-source?

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

Can I run Glances and Monit with Docker?

Glances: yes. Monit: check the project docs for container support.

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