Glances vs Prometheus

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?
FeatureGlancesPrometheus
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseLGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, binarydocker, binary, helm
GitHub stars★ 33,269★ 65,616
First released20122015
ReplacesDatadogDatadog

Why pick each one

Choose Glances if…

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

Choose Prometheus if…

  • Powerful query language
  • Reliable and scalable
  • Huge ecosystem
Prometheus details

Frequently asked questions

Is Glances or Prometheus better?

Neither is universally better. Prometheus 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 Prometheus free and open-source?

Yes. Glances is licensed under LGPL-3.0 and Prometheus under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Glances and Prometheus with Docker?

Glances: yes. Prometheus: yes.

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