# Beszel

> MIT lightweight server + Docker monitoring — PocketBase hub, tiny agents, alerts

**Category:** Observability  
**Pricing:** open-source  
**URL:** https://beszel.dev  
**GitHub:** https://github.com/henrygd/beszel  
**Added:** 2026-10-06

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## The Hook

Beszel is a small self-hosted monitoring stack: a hub web app (built on PocketBase) plus a lightweight agent on each box, giving you CPU, memory, disk, network, temps, GPU, S.M.A.R.T. and per-container Docker/Podman history with alerts — without standing up Prometheus and Grafana.

## What's Good

MIT (henrygd/beszel). Free path: run the hub and agent Docker images (or binaries) from the quick start at beszel.dev — no account, no SaaS. Tracks host and container metrics over time, ZFS pools, GPU usage (Nvidia, AMD, Intel), disk health with drive-failure alerts, and agent-side network checks. Multi-user with shared systems, OAuth/OIDC login (password auth can be switched off), and automatic backups to disk or S3-compatible storage. Useful when you run a handful of VPSes or a homelab and want history plus alerts in minutes. ★~26k.

## The Catch

Fixed set of host and container metrics, not a general metrics platform: no PromQL, no custom app metrics, no logs or traces. The hub is one PocketBase (SQLite) app, so think small fleets, not hundreds of nodes with long high-resolution retention. The agent needs host access (and the Docker/Podman socket for container stats), so scope it like any privileged daemon. Vs Uptime Kuma (endpoint uptime), Dozzle (container logs) and Prometheus + Grafana (full metrics stack): Beszel is the resource-history-and-alerts middle seat.

## Verdict

MIT self-hosted server and container monitoring when Prometheus + Grafana is too much — free, quick to run, but a fixed metric set on a single-hub design.