Uptime Kuma vs Vigil
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
VS
Vigil
Microservices status page with built-in monitoring
| Feature | Uptime Kuma | Vigil |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 71 · Good |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 91,752 | ★ 1,948 |
| First released | 2021 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pingdom, UptimeRobot | Statuspage, Pingdom |
What are Uptime Kuma and Vigil?
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
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
Uptime Kuma vs Vigil: key differences
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript, while Vigil is built with Rust. Licensing differs — MIT for Uptime Kuma versus MPL-2.0 for Vigil. Vigil is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Uptime Kuma. Vigil is the more established project (first released 2018), while Uptime Kuma arrived in 2021. Uptime Kuma has the considerably larger community, at 91,752 GitHub stars versus 1,948.
Why pick each one
Choose Uptime Kuma if…
- Very easy to use
- Great notifications
- Lightweight
Watch out for
- Single instance, no clustering
- Not for deep metrics
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 Uptime Kuma or Vigil better?
Uptime Kuma is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Vigil if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Uptime Kuma and Vigil free and open-source?
Yes. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and Vigil under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Uptime Kuma and Vigil with Docker?
Uptime Kuma: yes. Vigil: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Uptime Kuma or Vigil?
Vigil 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.