Glances vs nmon
Glances
nicolargo.github.ionmon
nmon.sourceforge.ioSide by side
| Figure | Glances | nmon |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 8.9 (#3) | 7.6 (#16) |
| License | Glances is distributed under the GNU LGPL version 3, expressed on PyPI as LGPL-3.0-only. | SourceForge lists the Linux project under the GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3). |
Plans
In their own words
Glances
Glances is a free, open-source, cross-platform tool for monitoring real-time system statistics and running processes. Its listed coverage includes CPU, memory, load, processes, network, disk I/O, sensors, filesystems, containers, alerts, and uptime. Client/server mode enables remote monitoring through a terminal, web interface, or API, while its built-in web UI lets users view a system from a browser-equipped device. Statistics can be exported to CSV or JSON files, databases such as InfluxDB and Prometheus, brokers such as RabbitMQ and Kafka, or a REST endpoint. The project documents Docker and Podman support and describes Docker and LXC container monitoring in its README. Installation options include pip, pipx, Homebrew, Linux and FreeBSD packages, and Docker images. Glances 4 requires Python 3.10 or higher. Its default installation does not include web interface dependencies; separate extras cover features such as web, GPU, containers, exports, and MCP. Version 4.5.1 and higher can provide an MCP server for AI assistants. The project uses the LGPL version 3 license.
nmon
nmon is a free Linux tool for systems administration, tuning, and performance benchmarking. It collects system information and presents live readings in a terminal through a curses interface. Keyboard controls let operators turn individual data categories on or off. The display can include CPU, memory, network, disks, filesystems, NFS, top processes, and, in the Linux version, resources and processors. Captured readings can be written to a comma-separated file for later analysis or longer-term recording. nmonchart converts output into webpage graphs, while nmon Analyser loads files into Excel and creates graphs. njmon injectors can add JSON data to InfluxDB and Splunk, with real-time graphing through InfluxDB and Grafana. Binaries are listed for POWER, x86, x86_64, mainframe, and ARM Linux. Unsupported distributions require compiling with GCC and the ncurses development library. The Linux project is GPLv3; AIX nmon is integrated into topas and is not open source.