Beszel
MIT lightweight server + Docker monitoring — PocketBase hub, tiny agents, alerts
Observability / Metrics · OSS/MIT · 26.3k
Reviewed 2026-10-06 · last push 2026-10-18 · repo checked 2026-10-19
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.
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