Prometheus + Grafana is the enterprise standard for monitoring - infinitely customizable but complex. Beszel gives you server and Docker monitoring in 5 minutes with <10MB RAM. Pick the right tool for your scale.
Beszel is a lightweight, zero-config server monitoring tool that covers 90% of what self-hosters need with minimal resources. Prometheus + Grafana is a powerful, flexible monitoring stack suited for production infrastructure with complex requirements. Choose Beszel for homelabs, small VPS fleets, and Docker setups. Choose Prometheus + Grafana when you need custom metrics, PromQL queries, and multi-datasource dashboards.
Last updated: 2026-04-07| Feature | Prometheus + Grafana | Beszel |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | Free (self-hosted) or $8+/mo (Grafana Cloud) | $3/mo (hosted on InstaPods) |
| RAM Usage | 500MB-1GB+ (Prometheus + Grafana + exporters) | <10MB per agent |
| Setup Time | 2-8 hours (config files, dashboards) | 5 minutes |
| Components Needed | 4+ (Prometheus, Grafana, node_exporter, cAdvisor) | 2 (hub + agent) |
| Custom Metrics | Unlimited (PromQL, custom exporters) | Fixed set (CPU, memory, disk, Docker) |
| Dashboard Customization | Fully customizable | Fixed layout |
| Docker Monitoring | Via cAdvisor (separate component) | Built-in per-container stats |
| Alerting | Alertmanager (complex YAML config) | Simple threshold alerts |
| Query Language | PromQL (powerful but steep learning curve) | None needed |
| Source Code | Apache 2.0 / AGPL v3 | MIT license |
Limitations that push you toward self-hosting.
A basic Prometheus + Grafana setup needs Prometheus, node_exporter, cAdvisor (for Docker), and Grafana. Each has its own config files, ports, and update cycle.
Prometheus alone can use 200-400MB depending on metric cardinality. Add Grafana (100-200MB), exporters, and cAdvisor. On a cheap VPS or Raspberry Pi, this is a significant chunk of your resources.
Writing scrape configs, building Grafana dashboards, configuring Alertmanager rules. Even with community dashboards, expect 2-4 hours before you have something useful.
Prometheus's query language is powerful but not intuitive. Writing queries like rate(node_cpu_seconds_total[5m]) is a barrier for most self-hosters who just want a CPU graph.
What you get when you own your infrastructure.
Deploy the hub, run the agent on each server. Monitoring starts immediately. No config files, no query language, no dashboard building.
Beszel's agent uses less than 10MB of RAM per server. Run it alongside your actual workloads without worrying about monitoring eating your resources.
Built-in per-container CPU, memory, and network tracking. No separate cAdvisor component needed.
Beszel shows you the metrics that matter - CPU, memory, disk, network, Docker - without building dashboards. The dashboard is ready on first load.
Monitoring 5 servers with Docker containers.
Beszel. Prometheus + Grafana is designed for large-scale production monitoring. For a homelab or small VPS fleet, Beszel gives you everything you need with a fraction of the complexity and resource usage.
For basic server and Docker monitoring, yes. Beszel covers CPU, memory, disk, network, and per-container Docker stats. It cannot replace Prometheus if you need custom metrics, PromQL queries, long-term metric storage, or integration with other data sources.
Prometheus is free and open source. However, Grafana Cloud (the hosted version) starts free with 10,000 active series, then charges $8 per 1,000 series. Self-hosting Prometheus is free but uses 200-400MB RAM and requires configuration.
Beszel is the most popular lightweight alternative for self-hosters. It provides server and Docker monitoring with <10MB RAM per agent, zero configuration, and a clean web dashboard. Other options include Netdata (more features, but 200-500MB RAM) and Glances (terminal-based, no web UI).
Deploy Beszel on InstaPods and stop paying for features that should be free.
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