head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs kube-state-metrics
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars, 8,426 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kube-state-metrics has 6,204 stars, 2,194 forks, 109 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 1,374% (91,477 vs 6,204 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; kube-state-metrics is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, kube-state-metrics 35%. 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 | kube-state-metrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Uptime Kuma if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kube-state-metrics if
- You want the kube-state-metrics 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 kube-state-metrics fits your workflow better
About Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma is a free, MIT licensed, self hosted monitoring tool with a reactive web dashboard, built for operators and teams that want to watch their own HTTP, TCP, and DNS endpoints and keep the resulting data on their own infrastructure.
read the full Uptime Kuma overview →
About kube-state-metrics
kube state metrics is an Apache 2.0 add on agent for Kubernetes that listens to the Kubernetes API server and exposes metrics about the state of cluster objects, built for platform teams and operators who run Prometheus based monitoring.
read the full kube-state-metrics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or kube-state-metrics more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars and kube-state-metrics has 6,204. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and kube-state-metrics free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and kube-state-metrics under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and kube-state-metrics?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and kube-state-metrics 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 kube-state-metrics?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (91,477 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kube-state-metrics if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.