head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs cortex
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars, 8,655 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cortex has 5,877 stars, 882 forks, 343 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 1,486% (93,190 vs 5,877 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; cortex is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, cortex 15%. Uptime Kuma was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (monitoring), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Uptime Kuma | cortex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 882 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Uptime Kuma if
- You weight community size — 93K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cortex if
- You want the cortex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cortex fits your workflow better
About Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma Uptime Kuma is an easy to use self hosted monitoring tool. 🥔 Live Demo Try it! Demo Server (Location: Frankfurt Germany): It is a temporary live demo, all data will be deleted after 10 minutes. Sponsored by Uptime Kuma Sponsors. ⭐ Features Monitoring uptime for HTTP(s) / TCP / HTTP(s) Keyword / HTTP(s) Json Query / Websocket / Ping / DNS Record / Push / Steam Game Server / Docker Containers Fancy, Reactive, Fast UI/UX Notifications via Telegram, Discord, Gotify, Slack, Pushover, Email (SMTP), and 90+ notification services, click here for the full list 20 second intervals Multi Languages Multiple…
read the full Uptime Kuma overview →
About cortex
Cortex Cortex is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi tenant, long term storage solution for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry Metrics. Features Horizontally scalable: Cortex can run across multiple machines in a cluster, exceeding the throughput and storage of a single machine. Highly available: When run in a cluster, Cortex can replicate data between machines. Multi tenant: Cortex can isolate data and queries from multiple different independent Prometheus sources in a single cluster. Long term storage: Cortex supports S3, GCS, Swift and Microsoft Azure for long term storage of metric data. Documentation…
read the full cortex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or cortex more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars and cortex has 5,877. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and cortex free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and cortex under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and cortex?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and cortex in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Uptime Kuma or cortex?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (93,190 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cortex if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.