head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs Nagios
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars, 8,426 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Nagios has 2,043 stars, 481 forks, 206 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 4,378% (91,477 vs 2,043 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; Nagios is written in C under GPL-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Nagios 24%. Uptime Kuma was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Nagios | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 481 |
| 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 Nagios if
- You want the Nagios feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Nagios 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 Nagios
Nagios is a monitoring program for hosts, services, and network resources. It is written in C and released under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0. The project belongs to the Infrastructure & Operations / Monitoring & Observability ecosystem. Nagios 4.x can check network services, monitor host resources, expose status and history through optional CGI programs, and send notifications when problems occur or are resolved.
read the full Nagios overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or Nagios more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars and Nagios has 2,043. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and Nagios free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and Nagios under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and Nagios?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and Nagios in C. 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 Nagios?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (91,477 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Nagios if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.