Blackbox Exporter vs Uptime Kuma
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Uptime Kuma
Easy self-hosted uptime monitoring tool
| Feature | Blackbox Exporter | Uptime Kuma |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 84 · Excellent | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,882 | ★ 91,752 |
| First released | 2016 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Pingdom | Pingdom, UptimeRobot |
What are Blackbox Exporter and Uptime Kuma?
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
Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma is a self-hosted monitoring tool that checks the availability of websites, services, and APIs with a clean dashboard. It targets users who want a simple, attractive status monitor. It is deployed via Docker as a single container.
- Monitors HTTP, TCP, DNS and more
- Beautiful dashboard and status pages
- 90+ notification integrations
- Single-container deployment
Blackbox Exporter vs Uptime Kuma: key differences
Blackbox Exporter is written in Go, while Uptime Kuma is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Blackbox Exporter versus MIT for Uptime Kuma. Blackbox Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Uptime Kuma. Blackbox Exporter is the more established project (first released 2016), while Uptime Kuma arrived in 2021. Uptime Kuma has the considerably larger community, at 91,752 GitHub stars versus 5,882.
Why pick each one
Choose Blackbox Exporter if…
- Simple uptime monitoring
- Tiny footprint
Watch out for
- Needs Prometheus to be useful
- No standalone UI
Choose Uptime Kuma if…
- Very easy to use
- Great notifications
- Lightweight
Watch out for
- Single instance, no clustering
- Not for deep metrics
Frequently asked questions
Is Blackbox Exporter 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 Blackbox Exporter and Uptime Kuma free and open-source?
Yes. Blackbox Exporter is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Uptime Kuma under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Blackbox Exporter and Uptime Kuma with Docker?
Blackbox Exporter: yes. Uptime Kuma: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Blackbox Exporter or Uptime Kuma?
Blackbox Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Uptime Kuma. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.