Portainer CE vs Uptime Kuma

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePortainer CEUptime Kuma
CategoryDashboards & StartpagesMonitoring & Status
LicenseZlibMIT
LanguageTypeScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, helmdocker
GitHub stars★ 38,184★ 89,960
First released20162021
ReplacesRancher, Docker DesktopPingdom, UptimeRobot

Why pick each one

Choose Portainer CE if…

  • Very beginner-friendly
  • Broad orchestrator support
Portainer CE details

Choose Uptime Kuma if…

  • Very easy to use
  • Great notifications
  • Lightweight
Uptime Kuma details

Frequently asked questions

Is Portainer CE or Uptime Kuma better?

Neither is universally better. Uptime Kuma has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Portainer CE and Uptime Kuma free and open-source?

Yes. Portainer CE is licensed under Zlib and Uptime Kuma under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Portainer CE and Uptime Kuma with Docker?

Portainer CE: yes. Uptime Kuma: yes.

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