Glances vs PM2
Glances
nicolargo.github.io
PM2
pm2.keymetrics.ioSide by side
| Figure | Glances | PM2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $79/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 6 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 8.9 (#3) | 9.0 (#2) |
| AI integration | Glances 4.5.1 and higher can provide an MCP server for AI assistants. | PM2 advertises an OAuth-secured MCP endpoint for Claude, Cursor and other compatible assistants, with 44 AI tools. |
| Alerts | Glances includes monitoring alerts and configurable thresholds. | PM2 Plus lists email and Slack notifications; Enterprise adds advanced rule-based alerting. |
| Deployment | Glances can be installed with pip, pipx, Homebrew or Linux and FreeBSD packages, and Docker images are available. | The deployment system provisions bare-metal servers, updates releases, executes commands, supports rollback and can target multiple hosts. |
| Documentation depth | Official documentation covers installation, quickstart, configuration, command reference, plugins, exports, APIs, and MCP usage. | The documentation includes runtime guides, CLI reference, configuration, cluster mode, deployment, integrations, advanced APIs, modules, FAQ and troubleshooting. |
| Extensibility | The project uses an open plugin and export-module architecture intended for developer extensions. | Keymetrics publishes an API client, monitoring agents, server monitoring and log-rotation modules in its public GitHub organization. |
| Monitoring | Its listed monitoring features include CPU, memory, load, processes, network, disk I/O, sensors, filesystems, containers, alerts and uptime. | PM2 Plus lists a web monitoring interface, application overview, issue tracking, custom metrics, server health checks, and Node.js V8 monitoring. |
| Public API | The software exposes XML-RPC and RESTful JSON APIs for other client applications. | PM2 exposes a JavaScript API with connect, start, restart, list, describe, delete, daemon control and interprocess messaging methods. |
| Security updates | The security policy lists version 4.x as supported for security updates and versions below 4.0 as unsupported. | PM2 7 reports fixes for CVE-2025-5891, CVE-2026-27699, command-injection vectors and prototype-pollution handling. |
| System requirements | Glances 4 requires Python 3.10 or newer and depends on psutil, defusedxml, packaging, and platform-specific packages. | PM2 7 requires Node.js 20 or newer and supports Bun; the project README lists Linux, macOS and Windows support. |
| What it does | Glances is a Python-based, cross-platform system monitoring tool with terminal and web interfaces. | PM2 is a daemon process manager intended to keep Node.js applications running continuously in production. |
Plans
PM2
- PM2 RuntimeFree
- RuntimeFree
- Plus$79 a month
- PM2 Plus$79 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- PM2 EnterprisePriced on request
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.
PM2
PM2 is a daemon process manager for managing applications and keeping them online. PM2 Runtime is an open-source process manager; PM2 Plus adds monitoring for Node.js production applications. Runtime supports cluster mode, zero-downtime reloads, watch and restart, startup scripts, log management and memory-based reloads. For containers, pm2-runtime can run Node.js applications with process fallback, flow control, monitoring and source-map support. PM2 Plus lists a web monitoring interface, application overview, issue tracking, custom metrics, server health checks and Node.js V8 monitoring. Its alerts include email and Slack notifications, while Enterprise adds rule-based alerting. The AI Assistant connects Claude, Cursor and other MCP-compatible assistants to monitoring data through OAuth with a PM2.io account. Documentation covers Docker, cloud providers, Heroku, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Nginx and deployment workflows. Runtime costs nothing, and Plus costs $79 a month.