Hertzbeat vs Kibana
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Kibana
Visualization and exploration for Elasticsearch data
| Feature | Hertzbeat | Kibana |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 96 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Java | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,405 | ★ 21,299 |
| First released | 2022 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Zabbix, Datadog | Splunk, Datadog |
What are Hertzbeat and Kibana?
Hertzbeat
HertzBeat is an open-source real-time monitoring system that checks websites, APIs, databases, servers, and more using customizable YAML templates. It includes alerting and a friendly dashboard with no agents required.
- Agentless monitoring
- Customizable YAML templates
- Threshold alerting
- Built-in dashboards
Kibana
Kibana is a visualization and management interface for Elasticsearch, widely used for log analytics and observability. It provides dashboards, search, and alerting over indexed operational data.
- Log and metric dashboards
- Discover search interface
- Alerting and machine learning
- Maps and visualizations
Hertzbeat vs Kibana: key differences
Hertzbeat is written in Java, while Kibana is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Hertzbeat versus AGPL-3.0 for Kibana. Kibana is the more established project (first released 2013), while Hertzbeat arrived in 2022. Kibana has the considerably larger community, at 21,299 GitHub stars versus 7,405.
Why pick each one
Choose Hertzbeat if…
- No agents to deploy
- Flexible templates
Watch out for
- JVM resource needs
- Newer project
Choose Kibana if…
- Rich visualization options
- Mature ecosystem
Watch out for
- Tied to Elasticsearch
- Heavy resource usage
Frequently asked questions
Is Hertzbeat or Kibana better?
Neither is universally better. Kibana has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Hertzbeat and Kibana free and open-source?
Yes. Hertzbeat is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Kibana under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Hertzbeat and Kibana with Docker?
Hertzbeat: yes. Kibana: yes.