Lunalytics vs Blackbox Exporter
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Lunalytics
Simple self-hosted website and service uptime monitor
VS
Blackbox Exporter
Probes endpoints over HTTP, TCP, DNS, and ICMP
| Feature | Lunalytics | Blackbox Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 0 · At risk | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | CSS | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1 | ★ 5,882 |
| First released | 2023 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Pingdom, Better Uptime | Pingdom |
What are Lunalytics and Blackbox Exporter?
Lunalytics
Lunalytics is a self-hosted uptime monitoring application that tracks websites and services and notifies you of downtime. It offers a clean interface, multi-user support, and several notification channels.
- Website and API monitoring
- Multi-user access
- Notification integrations
- Clean dashboard
Blackbox Exporter
The Blackbox Exporter allows Prometheus to probe endpoints over HTTP, HTTPS, DNS, TCP, ICMP, and gRPC. It is the standard way to perform black-box availability and latency monitoring with Prometheus.
- HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP probes
- TLS certificate checks
- Prometheus integration
- Multi-target probing
Lunalytics vs Blackbox Exporter: key differences
Lunalytics is written in CSS, while Blackbox Exporter is built with Go. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Lunalytics versus Apache-2.0 for Blackbox Exporter. Blackbox Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Lunalytics. Blackbox Exporter is the more established project (first released 2016), while Lunalytics arrived in 2023. Blackbox Exporter has the considerably larger community, at 5,882 GitHub stars versus 1.
Why pick each one
Choose Lunalytics if…
- Easy to set up
- Friendly interface
Watch out for
- Newer project
- Smaller feature set
Choose Blackbox Exporter if…
- Simple uptime monitoring
- Tiny footprint
Watch out for
- Needs Prometheus to be useful
- No standalone UI
Frequently asked questions
Is Lunalytics or Blackbox Exporter better?
Neither is universally better. Blackbox Exporter has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Lunalytics and Blackbox Exporter free and open-source?
Yes. Lunalytics is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Blackbox Exporter under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Lunalytics and Blackbox Exporter with Docker?
Lunalytics: yes. Blackbox Exporter: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Lunalytics or Blackbox Exporter?
Blackbox Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Lunalytics. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.