Monit vs Supervisor
Monit
mmonit.comSupervisor
supervisord.orgSide by side
| Figure | Monit | Supervisor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 7.8 (#10) | 7.3 (#21) |
| Integrations | Monit works with init, upstart, and systemd and can use existing run-level scripts to manage services. | The project lists third-party tools and libraries, including Puppet modules, Nagios and Icinga plugins, and clients for its XML-RPC interface. |
| Platforms | The maker lists precompiled binaries for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, AIX, Solaris, and illumos. | The documentation says Supervisor will not run on Windows and lists Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD among tested or supported systems. |
| Purpose | Monit is an open-source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems, with automatic maintenance and repair actions for errors. | Supervisor is a client/server system for controlling processes on UNIX-like operating systems. |
| Security | The maker says Monit is built with OpenSSL 3.5.7 statically linked and PAM support dynamically linked. | The documentation warns that configuration files may contain unencrypted credentials and should be protected with appropriate filesystem permissions. |
| Support | The maker directs questions to the community mailing list and says it does not have time to answer support questions sent directly to the company. | The project directs users to its GitHub issues page to report bugs or other errors. |
| Web interface | Its built-in HTTP(S) interface shows monitored service status and lets users start, stop, or restart processes and enable or disable monitoring. | A sparse browser-based interface can display and control process status when the HTTP server is enabled. |
Plans
In their own words
Monit
Monit is a free, open-source utility for managing and monitoring Unix systems, available for Linux, macOS, and self-hosted deployment. It watches local daemon processes and can restart a stopped process or stop one using too many resources. It checks files, directories, and filesystems for timestamp, checksum, or size changes, and tests TCP, UDP, and Unix domain sockets using protocols such as HTTP and SMTP. Scheduled program or script checks can trigger actions or alerts based on exit values. Monit tracks CPU, memory, system load, and network interfaces, and sends customizable error alerts to syslog or its own log. Its HTTP(S) interface displays service status and allows process control and monitoring changes. It works with init, upstart, and systemd, can use existing run-level scripts, and can run as PID 1 in containers. The maker says it uses statically linked OpenSSL 3.5.7 and dynamically linked PAM support.
Supervisor
Supervisor is a free client/server system for starting, monitoring and controlling processes on UNIX-like operating systems. It can restart processes after crashes and report their status. Administrators set per-process options in an INI-style configuration file, including failed-process restarts and automatic log rotation. Priorities and groups let related processes be started or stopped together.
Control is available through a command-line client, an optional browser interface and an XML-RPC interface. The browser view can display and control process status when the HTTP server is enabled; authentication can be required for commands over UNIX-domain or TCP sockets. Supervisor also has an event-notification protocol usable by programs in any language and extension points for Python developers. It can be installed with pip or from a downloaded distribution, including on systems without internet access. It is intended for project- or customer-related processes, not as a replacement for init as process ID 1. It runs on supported UNIX-like systems and does not run under Windows.