head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs node_exporter
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars, 8,426 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. node_exporter has 13,785 stars, 2,710 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 564% (91,477 vs 13,785 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; node_exporter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, node_exporter 20%. 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 | node_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| 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 node_exporter if
- You want the node_exporter 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 node_exporter 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 node_exporter
Node exporter is a Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by \ NIX kernels. It is written in Go and ships with pluggable metric collectors, so the set of measurements it gathers can be tuned per host rather than fixed at build time. The project lives in the Prometheus ecosystem, is published under the Apache 2.0 license, and has been developed for roughly thirteen years, with the repository showing 13,782 stars and 2,708 forks at the time of writing.
read the full node_exporter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or node_exporter more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 91,477 GitHub stars and node_exporter has 13,785. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and node_exporter free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and node_exporter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and node_exporter?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and node_exporter 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 node_exporter?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (91,477 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose node_exporter if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.