What is Pulse used for?

Pulse is self-hosted monitoring for Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, ordinary machines and vSphere, with alerts and AI-assisted health checks. It is a good fit for monitoring a Proxmox homelab, spotting silent backup failures, and one dashboard across Docker and Kubernetes hosts.

Is Pulse open source?

Yes. Pulse is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rcourtman/Pulse and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Pulse is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $149 per month.

Can I self-host Pulse?

Yes. Pulse can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What are some alternatives to Pulse?

Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include Beszel, Uptime Kuma and Gatus. SaaS products in the same category include Clawwatcher, Groundcover and Nagios XI.

Is Pulse actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Pulse was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.4.5, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 6.8k stars on GitHub.

Pulse: open-source monitoring & observability

About Pulse

Pulse is a self-hosted monitoring dashboard that brings Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server and Mail Gateway, Docker and Podman, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, Linux, Windows and macOS machines and early-access VMware vSphere into one workspace. It merges current state, history, alerts, visibility into recoveries and scheduled health checks, and does not require a conventional enterprise monitoring stack.

Its alerts and Pulse Patrol aim to find problems when nobody is watching, such as failed backups, capacity pressure, restart loops, unhealthy containers and clock drift. Each platform gets familiar dedicated views, all sharing a single resource model for search, alerts, history and investigation. Coverage includes Proxmox nodes, guests, storage, replication and Ceph, Docker hosts, Compose projects and Swarm services, Kubernetes workloads, and TrueNAS pools, datasets and snapshots.

The project stresses operator control: stored credentials are encrypted, API tokens have limited scopes, agent commands start disabled and governed fixes need an approval path. Pulse is written in Go and TypeScript, licensed under MIT, and offers a live demo. It suits homelab owners and MSPs who run Proxmox and containers.

Key features

Proxmox VE, PBS and PMG monitoring
Docker, Podman and Kubernetes views
TrueNAS pools, datasets and snapshots
Alerts for failed backups and capacity pressure
AI-assisted Pulse Patrol health checks
Encrypted credentials and scoped API tokens
Unified agent for host metrics

Good fit for

→Monitoring a Proxmox homelab
→Spotting silent backup failures
→One dashboard across Docker and Kubernetes hosts

Built with: Go; Docker; TypeScript; Kubernetes
Tags: monitoring; proxmox; docker; kubernetes; truenas; homelab; alerts; self-hosted; vsphere; golang

Pulse: questions and answers

What is Pulse used for?: Pulse is self-hosted monitoring for Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, TrueNAS, ordinary machines and vSphere, with alerts and AI-assisted health checks. It is a good fit for monitoring a Proxmox homelab, spotting silent backup failures, and one dashboard across Docker and Kubernetes hosts.
Is Pulse open source?: Yes. Pulse is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rcourtman/Pulse and is written mainly in Go.
Is Pulse free?: Yes. Pulse is open source, so the software itself is free to use. Paid plans are also available, starting at $149 per month.
Can I self-host Pulse?: Yes. Pulse can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What are some alternatives to Pulse?: Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include Beszel, Uptime Kuma and Gatus. SaaS products in the same category include Clawwatcher, Groundcover and Nagios XI.
Is Pulse actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Pulse was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.4.5, published on 30 September 2026. The project has 6.8k stars on GitHub.