Pulse Monitor vs Pushgateway
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pulse Monitor | Pushgateway |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,742 | ★ 3,369 |
| First released | 2024 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Datadog | Datadog |
What are Pulse Monitor and Pushgateway?
Pulse Monitor
Pulse is a self-hosted monitoring application focused on Proxmox VE and PBS environments, surfacing node, VM, and backup health. It provides real-time dashboards and alerting.
- Proxmox monitoring
- VM and node health
- Backup status
- Real-time dashboards
Pushgateway
The Prometheus Pushgateway allows ephemeral and batch jobs to expose their metrics to Prometheus. Jobs push metrics to the gateway, which Prometheus then scrapes on its regular schedule.
- Accepts pushed metrics
- Bridges batch jobs to Prometheus
- Persists metrics to disk
- Tiny footprint
Pulse Monitor vs Pushgateway: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — MIT for Pulse Monitor versus Apache-2.0 for Pushgateway. Pushgateway is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Pulse Monitor. Pushgateway is the more established project (first released 2015), while Pulse Monitor arrived in 2024. Pulse Monitor has the considerably larger community, at 6,742 GitHub stars versus 3,369.
Why pick each one
Choose Pulse Monitor if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6.7k GitHub stars
Choose Pushgateway if…
- Solves batch job monitoring
- Simple to run
Watch out for
- Not for high-frequency metrics
- Can become a single point of failure
Frequently asked questions
Is Pulse Monitor or Pushgateway better?
Neither is universally better. Pulse Monitor has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Pulse Monitor and Pushgateway free and open-source?
Yes. Pulse Monitor is licensed under MIT and Pushgateway under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pulse Monitor and Pushgateway with Docker?
Pulse Monitor: yes. Pushgateway: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Pulse Monitor or Pushgateway?
Pushgateway has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Pulse Monitor. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.