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Self-Hosting Glances: System Monitoring Dashboard

Glances is a cross-platform system monitoring tool. CPU, memory, disk, network, processes — all in one terminal or web UI.

glancesmonitoringsystemdashboard

What Is Glances?


Glances is a cross-platform system monitoring tool written in Python. It provides a real-time overview of your system resources.


Features


Metrics

  • CPU (per-core, load average)
  • Memory and swap
  • Disk I/O and usage
  • Network interfaces
  • Process list (top-like)
  • Docker/Podman containers
  • Sensors (temperature, fans)
  • Battery status

    • Interfaces

  • Terminal UI (curses)
  • Web UI (browser-based)
  • API (RESTful)
  • CSV/JSON export

    • Alerting

  • Threshold-based alerts
  • Export to InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, Prometheus
  • Action triggers on alerts

    • Glances vs htop vs Netdata


  • Glances: Most complete TUI/web, Python
  • htop: Process-focused, lightest
  • Netdata: Most metrics, best dashboards, heavier

    • Use Cases


  • Quick system overview via SSH
  • Lightweight web-based monitoring
  • Feeding metrics to time-series databases
  • Docker container monitoring

    • Deployment


    Deploy on TinyPod or install directly. Resources: 1 CPU, 128 MB RAM.


    Glances is htop's bigger sibling. When you need more than process monitoring but less than a full Grafana stack.