glances

Glances is a cross-platform system monitoring tool that displays real-time metrics for CPU, memory, disk, network usage, running processes, temperatures, and container statistics. It presents information through a terminal-based dashboard, web interface, or command-line output formats.

The tool supports multiple operating modes including standalone TUI (glances), web server mode (glances -w) with HTTP/RESTful API access, and client/server monitoring via XML-RPC. It can output raw statistics to stdout in plain text, CSV, or JSON formats for scripting and automation. Glances also includes an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for integration with AI assistants like Claude and Cursor.

Glances exports data to various external systems including InfluxDB, ElasticSearch, PostgreSQL, Prometheus, Kafka, and others. It supports Docker and LXC container monitoring, and includes a network discovery browser to detect other Glances instances. The tool can be used as a Python library through its API module, allowing programmatic access to system metrics.

Target users include system administrators, DevOps engineers, and developers who need real-time system monitoring, remote server oversight, or integration of system metrics into larger monitoring infrastructures.

Installation

# via pip
pip install glances

# via pip (full features)
pip install 'glances[all]'

# via uvx
uvx glances