Monika vs Vigil
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Monika | Vigil |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 66 · Good | 71 · Good |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 628 | ★ 1,948 |
| First released | 2021 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pingdom, Datadog Synthetics | Statuspage, Pingdom |
What are Monika and Vigil?
Monika
Monika is a free and open-source synthetic monitoring tool that runs HTTP probes defined in a configuration file and alerts on failures. It checks uptime, response times, and assertions.
- Config-driven probes
- Response assertions
- Many alert channels
- Synthetic monitoring
Vigil
Vigil is a microservices status page that monitors distributed infrastructure and reports outages. It can probe HTTP, TCP, and ICMP endpoints and includes a local Prober for push-based reporting.
- Status page and monitoring
- HTTP, TCP, ICMP probes
- Push reporting with Vigil Reporter
- Alerts to Slack and email
Monika vs Vigil: key differences
Monika is written in TypeScript, while Vigil is built with Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Monika versus MPL-2.0 for Vigil. Vigil is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Monika. Vigil is the more established project (first released 2018), while Monika arrived in 2021. Vigil has the considerably larger community, at 1,948 GitHub stars versus 628.
Why pick each one
Choose Monika if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in TypeScript
Choose Vigil if…
- Very low resource use
- Combines checks and status page
Watch out for
- Configuration via TOML files
- Smaller community
Frequently asked questions
Is Monika or Vigil better?
Neither is universally better. Vigil has the larger community, while Monika is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Monika and Vigil free and open-source?
Yes. Monika is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Vigil under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Monika and Vigil with Docker?
Monika: yes. Vigil: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Monika or Vigil?
Vigil has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Monika. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.