Datadog Infrastructure Monitoring
Cloud-scale infrastructure monitoring with real-time dashboards and AIOps.
Sensu Go
Scalable, agent‑based monitoring for cloud‑native, distributed systems
Sensu Go provides agent‑based health checks, auto‑discovery, and a built‑in etcd datastore, delivering flexible, extensible monitoring for dynamic, multi‑cloud infrastructures.
Overview
Overview
Sensu Go is a rewrite of the original Sensu monitoring system in Go, designed for modern, ephemeral infrastructure. It uses lightweight agents that perform service checks and automatically discover new workloads, making it ideal for cloud‑native and containerized environments.
Capabilities & Deployment
The platform stores configuration and state in an embedded etcd datastore, eliminating the need for external services like Redis or RabbitMQ. Filters are expressed in JavaScript, providing powerful, real‑time event routing. Sensu Go exposes a rich set of APIs for configuration, data ingestion, and querying, and can be installed via native packages, Docker, or built from source with Go ≥1.18. The web UI is now a separate component, allowing flexible integration with existing dashboards.
Who Benefits
Teams that require a self‑hosted, API‑driven monitoring router for dynamic, multi‑cloud workloads will find Sensu Go’s low operational overhead and extensibility a strong fit.
Highlights
Embedded etcd datastore removes external dependencies
Agent‑based checks with built‑in auto‑discovery
JavaScript filter expressions replace Ruby for dynamic routing
Comprehensive APIs for configuration and data ingestion
Pros
- Low operational overhead with built‑in persistence
- Native support for cloud‑native and containerized environments
- Highly extensible via plugins and APIs
- MIT‑licensed with active community
Considerations
- Building from source requires Go ≥1.18
- Web UI is a separate product since version 6.0
- Learning curve for JavaScript‑based filters
- Limited out‑of‑the‑box visual dashboards
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Sensu Go, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams managing dynamic, containerized workloads
- Organizations needing a lightweight, API‑driven monitoring router
- Companies preferring a self‑hosted Go‑based solution
- Environments that already run etcd clusters
Not ideal when
- Users seeking a fully managed SaaS monitoring platform
- Teams without Go development expertise
- Deployments reliant on legacy Ruby‑based Sensu plugins
- Scenarios requiring comprehensive built‑in visual dashboards
How teams use it
Auto‑discover services in Kubernetes clusters
Agents automatically register new pods, and health checks trigger alerts when containers become unhealthy.
Collect custom telemetry via API
External systems push metrics through Sensu’s input API, enabling unified observability across heterogeneous services.
Scale monitoring across multi‑cloud VMs
Embedded etcd stores state locally, allowing rapid deployment on AWS, GCP, and Azure without extra dependencies.
Implement dynamic alert routing
JavaScript filters evaluate events in real time, routing alerts to appropriate notification channels based on context.
Tech snapshot
Go100%
PowerShell1%
Shell1%
Frequently asked questions
What storage backend does Sensu Go use?
By default it uses an embedded etcd datastore; you can also point it at an external etcd cluster.
Do I need Redis or RabbitMQ?
No, Sensu Go eliminates those external services; monitoring data is persisted in etcd.
How are checks filtered?
Filters are written in JavaScript and evaluated by an embedded interpreter, replacing the older Ruby expressions.
Is there a web UI?
Starting with version 6.0 the UI is a separate repository; you can run it alongside the backend or use third‑party dashboards.
What platforms are supported for installation?
Official packages exist for Debian/Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS, and a Docker image is provided for quick start.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 1,092
- Watchers
- 1,092
- Forks
- 180
LicenseMIT
Repo age8 years old
Last commitlast month
Primary languageGo
Last synced 3 hours ago