How to Self-Host Beszel
Beszel lightweight server monitoring platform with a central dashboard, small host agents, historical metrics, Docker statistics, and alerts. It was added to SelfHub after appearing in What I Self-Host, What I Don't, and Why; the product facts below were checked against the project's official site and source repository.
When Beszel is a good fit
Choose Beszel when you want this capability on infrastructure you control and are prepared to own updates, access control, monitoring, and recovery. Review the upstream documentation before selecting a version because deployment requirements can change between releases.
Deployment notes
Deploy the hub with persistent data, then install one agent on every monitored host. Restrict agent connectivity to the hub and document the authentication keys.
Place any browser-accessible interface behind HTTPS. Pin a release rather than an unqualified latest tag, apply updates deliberately, and keep the service reachable only from the networks and users that need it.
Data and recovery
Persist the hub data directory and decide how much metric history you actually need before sizing storage.
Write down the restore sequence, required secrets, exposed ports, and external dependencies. A scheduled backup is not complete until a clean host can restore it and pass a functional check.
Important limitation
Monitoring agents expose sensitive host details; do not publish their ports directly to the internet.
Production checklist
- Pin and record the deployed version.
- Persist every documented data and configuration path.
- Terminate TLS at a maintained reverse proxy or trusted tunnel.
- Restrict administrative interfaces and rotate default credentials.
- Monitor uptime, disk space, certificate expiry, and failed jobs.
- Test an off-host backup with a real restore.
