Beszel monitors server health - CPU, memory, disk, Docker containers. Uptime Kuma monitors service availability - is your website up? Different tools for different problems. Most self-hosters run both.
Beszel and Uptime Kuma are complementary tools, not competitors. Beszel monitors server resources (CPU, memory, disk, Docker containers) from inside the server. Uptime Kuma monitors service availability (HTTP, TCP, DNS) from outside. Use Beszel to know when a server is overloaded. Use Uptime Kuma to know when a service is down. The best setup runs both.
Last updated: 2026-04-07| Feature | Uptime Kuma | Beszel |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Endpoint uptime monitoring | Server resource monitoring |
| Starting Price | $3/mo (self-hosted on InstaPods) | $3/mo (self-hosted on InstaPods) |
| What It Monitors | HTTP, TCP, DNS, Ping, Docker, gRPC, MQTT | CPU, memory, disk, network, Docker containers |
| Monitoring Approach | External checks (is it responding?) | Internal metrics (how is it performing?) |
| Status Pages | Yes (built-in, customizable) | No |
| Docker Monitoring | Container up/down status | Per-container CPU, memory, network |
| Alerting | 90+ notification channels | Threshold alerts (email, webhook) |
| RAM Usage | ~30-50MB | <10MB per agent |
| Setup Time | 5-10 minutes | 5 minutes |
| Source Code | MIT license | MIT license |
Limitations that push you toward self-hosting.
Uptime Kuma checks if services respond, but doesn't track CPU, memory, or disk usage. Your server could be at 95% CPU and Uptime Kuma wouldn't alert you until the service actually crashes.
Uptime Kuma monitors from outside. It can tell you a service is down, but not why. Beszel's resource metrics show you whether it's CPU saturation, memory exhaustion, or disk full.
No CPU/memory/disk trends over time. You can't look back to see when your server started running hot or predict when you'll run out of disk space.
Self-hosted Uptime Kuma monitors from one location. If your monitoring server and your app server share a network, a network issue could take both offline.
What you get when you own your infrastructure.
See CPU, memory, disk, and network usage for every server. Know when resources are running low before services crash.
Per-container CPU, memory, and network tracking. Find which container is consuming resources without SSH-ing into the server.
Track resource usage over days, weeks, and months. Plan capacity and spot gradual resource leaks.
<10MB RAM per agent vs Uptime Kuma's 30-50MB. Both are lightweight, but Beszel is even lighter.
Monitoring 5 servers and 20 endpoints.
Ideally, yes. Beszel tells you when server resources are strained (CPU at 90%, disk full). Uptime Kuma tells you when services are unreachable. Together they cost $6/mo on InstaPods and give you complete monitoring.
No. Uptime Kuma monitors endpoint availability (is this URL responding?) but doesn't track server resources. For CPU, memory, and disk monitoring, you need Beszel, Netdata, or Prometheus.
Start with Beszel if you want to know how your servers are performing. Start with Uptime Kuma if you want to know when your websites or APIs go down. For most self-hosters, Beszel is the more immediately useful tool.
Netdata comes closest, offering both resource metrics and some availability checking. However, it uses 200-500MB RAM vs Beszel + Uptime Kuma's combined 40-60MB. For lightweight setups, running both dedicated tools is more efficient.
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