head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs stern
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars, 8,655 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stern has 4,914 stars, 180 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 1,796% (93,190 vs 4,914 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; stern is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, stern 4%. 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 | stern | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 180 |
| 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 stern if
- You want the stern 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 stern 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 stern
stern Fork of discontinued wercker/stern Stern allows you to tail multiple pods on Kubernetes and multiple containers within the pod. Each result is color coded for quicker debugging. The query is a regular expression or a Kubernetes resource in the form / so the pod name can easily be filtered and you don't need to specify the exact id (for instance omitting the deployment id). If a pod is deleted it gets removed from tail and if a new pod is added it automatically gets tailed. When a pod contains multiple containers Stern can tail all of them too without having to do this manually for each one. Simply specify…
read the full stern overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or stern more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars and stern has 4,914. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and stern free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT and stern under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and stern?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and stern 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 stern?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (93,190 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose stern if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.