Uptime Kuma vs Beszel: Which Monitoring Tool?

By Alex Thornton monitoring January 3, 2026 Updated: March 10, 2026

Summary

Uptime Kuma and Beszel monitor different things. Uptime Kuma checks whether your services are reachable — pinging URLs, ports, DNS records, and Docker containers. Beszel tracks system-level metrics — CPU, RAM, disk, network, GPU, and temperature across multiple servers. Most self-hosters should start with Uptime Kuma for availability monitoring, then add Beszel when they need system metrics for capacity planning or troubleshooting. Running both together costs under 150MB of RAM total.

They Solve Different Problems

The confusion between these tools comes from the word “monitoring.” Both monitor things, but at completely different layers:

Uptime Kuma answers: “Is my Nextcloud responding? Is my DNS resolving? Did my SSL certificate expire? Is my Docker container running?”

Beszel answers: “Why is my server slow? Which container is eating all the RAM? Is my disk filling up? What’s my GPU temperature under load?”

Uptime Kuma watches from the outside in — the same perspective as your users hitting a URL. Beszel watches from the inside out — the same perspective as an admin SSH’d into the box.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Uptime Kuma 2.2.1	Beszel 0.18.4
Primary function	Service uptime/availability	System resource metrics
Monitors	URLs, TCP, DNS, ping, WebSocket, Docker, Steam, JSON query	CPU, RAM, disk, network, temp, GPU, battery, S.M.A.R.T.
Multi-server	Single server (monitors remote services via network)	Hub + agent model (agent on each server)
Architecture	Single Node.js container	Go hub + Go agent per server
Notification channels	90+ (Telegram, Discord, Slack, email, Pushover, Gotify, ntfy, Matrix, webhooks)	Webhooks, Telegram, Shoutrrr integrations
Status pages	Yes (public, customizable, multiple with domain mapping)	No
GPU monitoring	No	Yes (NVIDIA via NVML, AMD via sysfs, Apple Silicon)
S.M.A.R.T. disk health	No	Yes (dedicated monitoring page, hourly collection)
Battery monitoring	No	Yes (charge tracking, low battery alerts)
Systemd service monitoring	No	Yes (service status tracking)
Container-level metrics	Status only (up/down)	CPU, RAM, network per container
Multi-user	Single admin with 2FA	Multi-user with OAuth/OIDC, per-user system management
API	WebSocket-based (real-time)	REST API with bearer tokens
Maintenance windows	Yes	Quiet hours (alert silencing)
Check interval	20 seconds minimum	Continuous agent reporting
Outbound heartbeats	No	Yes (Healthchecks.io, BetterStack integration)
Language	JavaScript/Vue	Go/TypeScript
Database	SQLite	SQLite (PocketBase)
Mobile app	No (responsive web UI)	No (responsive web UI)
GitHub stars	83.5k	19.7k

Docker Setup Comparison

Uptime Kuma

One container, one volume, done:

services:
  uptime-kuma:
    image: louislam/uptime-kuma:2.2.1
    volumes:
      - uptime-kuma-data:/app/data
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  uptime-kuma-data:

Start it, open http://your-server:3001, create an admin account. Add your first monitor in under two minutes.

Beszel Hub

The central dashboard that aggregates data from all agents:

services:
  beszel-hub:
    image: henrygd/beszel:0.18.4
    volumes:
      - beszel-data:/beszel_data
    ports:
      - "8090:8090"
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  beszel-data:

Beszel Agent (on each monitored server)

Deploy on every server you want to monitor:

services:
  beszel-agent:
    image: henrygd/beszel-agent:0.18.4
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      TOKEN: "your-agent-token"       # Generated by the hub
      KEY: "your-ssh-key"             # Generated by the hub
      PORT: "45876"
    network_mode: host
    restart: unless-stopped

Beszel requires one extra step per server — deploy the agent and register it with the hub. Not hard, but it scales linearly with your server count. The agent is tiny (~10MB RAM) so it won’t impact the monitored system.

Performance and Resource Usage

Metric	Uptime Kuma	Beszel Hub	Beszel Agent
RAM (idle)	~80MB	~30MB	~10MB
RAM (10 services)	~85MB	~35MB	~10MB per server
RAM (50 services)	~100MB	~50MB	~10MB per server
RAM (100+ services)	~120-150MB	~80MB	~10MB per server
CPU (idle)	Minimal (~1-2%)	Minimal (<1%)	Minimal (<1%)
Disk (application)	~50MB	~20MB	~15MB
Startup time	2-3 seconds	<1 second	<1 second
Language runtime	Node.js 20.4+	Native Go binary	Native Go binary

Uptime Kuma’s memory grows with monitor count — each HTTP monitor maintains connection state and response time history. At 100 monitors you’re still well under 200MB.

Beszel’s hub RAM scales with the number of agents and data retention period. The agent itself is fixed at ~10MB regardless of what’s running on the server because it reads system metrics from /proc and /sys, not from application memory.

For a typical homelab (5 servers, 30 monitored services): Uptime Kuma ~90MB + Beszel hub ~40MB + 5 agents at ~10MB = ~180MB total for comprehensive monitoring.

Alerting

Uptime Kuma has the clear advantage. Over 90 notification integrations out of the box — Telegram, Discord, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Email (SMTP), Pushover, Gotify, ntfy, Matrix, PagerDuty, Webhooks, and dozens more. Configure different notification channels per monitor. Set alert thresholds, retry counts, and notification intervals. The alert configuration UI is excellent.

Beszel supports webhooks, Telegram, and Shoutrrr-based integrations. Shoutrrr covers many popular services (Slack, Discord, Teams, email), but the configuration isn’t as polished as Uptime Kuma’s per-monitor setup. Since v0.17.0, Beszel supports quiet hours for suppressing alerts during maintenance windows.

Alert types differ by tool:

Alert Type	Uptime Kuma	Beszel
Service down	Yes	No (not its job)
Response time degradation	Yes	No
SSL certificate expiry	Yes	No
DNS resolution failure	Yes	No
CPU threshold	No	Yes
RAM threshold	No	Yes
Disk usage threshold	No	Yes
Temperature threshold	No	Yes
GPU usage threshold	No	Yes (since v0.16.0)
Low battery	No	Yes (since v0.18.0)
S.M.A.R.T. disk health	No	Yes (since v0.15.0)
Systemd service status	No	Yes (since v0.16.0)
Docker container status	No	In progress

What Beszel Added Since Early Versions

Beszel has matured significantly. Key additions:

GPU monitoring (v0.15.0+): NVIDIA via NVML, AMD via sysfs, Apple Silicon. Per-GPU usage, temperature, and power draw. GPU usage alerts since v0.16.0.
S.M.A.R.T. disk health (v0.15.0+): Dedicated monitoring page with hourly background collection. Configurable intervals via SMART_INTERVAL. Alpine image variant includes smartmontools.
Battery monitoring (v0.18.0+): Charge tracking and low battery alerts for laptops and UPS-connected systems.
Systemd service monitoring (v0.16.0+): Track whether critical services (like your reverse proxy or database) are running.
Outbound heartbeat monitoring (v0.18.4): Push uptime data to external services like Healthchecks.io and BetterStack. Useful when your monitoring itself needs to be monitored.
Multi-hub support (v0.10.0+): A single agent can report to multiple Beszel hubs — useful for team environments where different groups manage overlapping infrastructure.
Windows and FreeBSD support (v0.17.0+): Hub and agent builds for non-Linux systems.
Container-level metrics: Per-container CPU, memory, and network usage history. Not just “is the container running” but “how much RAM is this container using over time.”

What the Community Says

The self-hosting community generally agrees these tools are complementary, not competitive. Common patterns from r/selfhosted and r/homelab discussions:

“I replaced Grafana+Prometheus with Beszel.” Users who were running the full Grafana stack (Prometheus + Node Exporter + Grafana) just for basic system metrics often switch to Beszel. The monitoring depth is less, but setup time goes from hours to minutes and maintenance burden drops significantly.

“Uptime Kuma is the first thing I install on a new server.” It’s the most recommended monitoring tool in the self-hosting community. The setup is trivial, the UI is polished, and 90+ notification channels means it works with whatever messaging platform you already use.

“I run both — Uptime Kuma told me Nextcloud was down, Beszel told me the disk was full.” This is the canonical use case for running both. Uptime Kuma detects the symptom (service unreachable), Beszel provides the root cause (resource exhaustion).

“Beszel is what Netdata should have been — lightweight and focused.” Users frustrated by Netdata’s resource usage (~200-500MB RAM) or Grafana’s complexity find Beszel hits the sweet spot of useful system metrics without the overhead.

Use Cases

Choose Uptime Kuma If…

You need to know when services go down (the most common monitoring need)
You want public status pages for users or clients
You have services across multiple hosting providers or VPS instances
You need rich alerting with 90+ notification channels
You want maintenance window scheduling with advance notification
You’re monitoring external services you don’t control (APIs, third-party websites, DNS)
You want sub-minute check intervals (20 seconds minimum)

Choose Beszel If…

You need system-level resource monitoring across multiple servers
You want CPU/RAM/disk/GPU historical trends for capacity planning
You need temperature monitoring for Raspberry Pi, fanless devices, or GPU workloads
You want S.M.A.R.T. disk health tracking to catch failing drives early
You need per-container resource metrics (which Docker container is using the most RAM?)
You want an extremely lightweight agent that won’t impact monitored systems
You’re running GPU workloads (AI/ML, transcoding) and need GPU metrics
You already use Grafana+Prometheus and want something simpler

Run Both If…

You want the full picture: availability AND resource metrics
You have 3+ servers and need both “is it up?” and “how’s it performing?”
You want Uptime Kuma’s alerting for service downtime + Beszel’s resource trends for root cause analysis
Combined RAM: ~180MB for a 5-server setup with 30 monitors — negligible on any modern server

Which Uses Less Resources?

Beszel wins on raw numbers. The hub uses ~30MB and each agent uses ~10MB. Uptime Kuma uses ~80MB idle. But neither tool is resource-intensive — both run comfortably on a Raspberry Pi 4 alongside dozens of other containers. Resource usage shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

Can I Run Both?

Yes, and many self-hosters do. There’s zero overlap in functionality — Uptime Kuma checks service availability from the network level, Beszel tracks system resources from the OS level. They don’t interfere with each other and their combined footprint is under 200MB for a typical setup.

A common setup:

Uptime Kuma on your primary server, monitoring all your services via HTTP/TCP/ping
Beszel hub on the same server, with agents on every server in your homelab
Uptime Kuma alerts → “something broke” (Telegram notification)
Beszel dashboard → “here’s why it broke” (disk full, RAM exhausted, CPU pegged)

Final Verdict

Start with Uptime Kuma. Knowing when services go down is the baseline monitoring requirement for any self-hosting setup. Uptime Kuma’s single-container deployment, polished UI, and 90+ notification integrations make it the obvious first choice. It’s the most popular self-hosted monitoring tool for a reason.

Add Beszel when you need deeper visibility. Once you have multiple servers, start hitting unexplained performance issues, or want to track GPU/disk health over time, Beszel fills the gap that Uptime Kuma can’t. Its lightweight agents add negligible overhead to monitored systems, and features like S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and GPU tracking have no equivalent in Uptime Kuma.

They’re complementary, not competitive. The best monitoring setup for most self-hosters is both tools running together — Uptime Kuma for the “is it up?” layer and Beszel for the “how’s it performing?” layer.

FAQ

Can Beszel replace Uptime Kuma?

No. Beszel monitors system resources (CPU, RAM, disk, GPU, temperature) on servers where you install its agent. It doesn’t check whether a URL is responding, whether a port is open, or whether your SSL certificate is about to expire. They monitor different layers — Beszel watches the infrastructure, Uptime Kuma watches the services running on that infrastructure.

Can Uptime Kuma monitor system resources like CPU and RAM?

Not directly. Uptime Kuma monitors service availability — is port 443 responding? Is the HTTP status code 200? You can indirectly detect resource exhaustion when response times spike, but for actual CPU/RAM/disk metrics, use Beszel, Netdata, or Grafana+Prometheus.

Which uses less resources?

Beszel. Its agent uses ~10MB RAM and the hub uses ~30MB. Uptime Kuma uses ~80MB idle. But both are lightweight enough to run on a Raspberry Pi — resource usage shouldn’t drive this decision.

Can I run both together?

Yes, and it’s the recommended setup for serious self-hosters. Uptime Kuma handles availability monitoring with rich alerting. Beszel handles system metrics with lightweight agents. Combined overhead is under 200MB for a typical homelab.

What about Grafana + Prometheus instead?

Grafana + Prometheus is significantly more powerful but also significantly more complex. You need Prometheus, Node Exporter, and Grafana at minimum — three containers, PromQL queries, and dashboard configuration. If you want a full observability stack with custom dashboards and long-term metric retention, go with Grafana. If you want fast, simple monitoring with minimal setup, Uptime Kuma + Beszel covers 90% of self-hosting monitoring needs in a fraction of the setup time.

Does Beszel support GPU monitoring?

Yes. Since v0.15.0, Beszel supports NVIDIA GPUs (via NVML), AMD GPUs (via sysfs since v0.18.3), and Apple Silicon. It tracks GPU usage, temperature, and power draw with per-GPU granularity. GPU usage alerts were added in v0.16.0.

Read Next Grafana vs Beszel: Which Monitoring Tool?

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