Does Glance need a domain name?

No. Glance is fully functional on a plain IP address and port (e.g. http://95.x.x.x:8080). A domain and HTTPS are recommended for convenience and auth-cookie security, but they are not required. You can add a reverse proxy like Caddy in front of Glance at any time.

How do I add widgets to my Glance dashboard?

Edit the glance.yml config file on your VPS (at /data/glance.yml inside the Docker volume). Each widget is a YAML block under a column. For example, add `- type: rss` with a feeds list to show RSS articles, or `- type: docker-containers` to monitor your containers. Restart with `docker compose restart glance`. Glance's documentation lists 30+ widget types.

Is my Glance dashboard publicly visible?

No — Glance is configured with built-in authentication. Any visitor is redirected to a login page and must enter the admin username and password. You can add more users in the config file's auth.users section. For extra isolation, place Glance behind a VPN or Cloudflare Access.

Can Glance show the status of my Docker containers?

Yes. Add `- type: docker-containers` to a column in glance.yml. The ServOrbit provisioning template mounts the Docker socket (/var/run/docker.sock) read-only inside the Glance container, so the widget reads your container list without elevated privileges. You will see each container's name, image and running status.

Yes. Glance is AGPL-3.0 open-source software — free to use, modify and self-host. There are no paid plans, no feature paywalls and no usage limits. You only pay for the ServOrbit VPS that runs it.

Monitor your infrastructure.

Glance

Self-hosted startpage dashboard — tech news, server metrics and container status on one page, stateless, under 25 MB RAM.

512 MB RAM 1 vCPU Port 8080 Available

Tech stack

DockerGo

Minimum RAM512 MB

Minimum CPU1 vCPU

Default port8080

Compatible OSChoice of Linux distributions

Glance (AGPL-3.0, 35.8 k+ stars) is a self-hosted dashboard that puts your most-used information feeds and server stats on a single, fast-loading page. Written in Go, it idles under 25 MB of RAM, serves from a single config file and starts in under a second — without a database, without Redis, without complex setup.

Deployed on a ServOrbit VPS, Glance gives you a personal startpage featuring Hacker News stories, RSS feeds, GitHub release timelines, server CPU/RAM/disk stats and Docker container status — all consolidated into a configurable columnar layout. Adding a widget is a single block in a YAML config file.

The auth module secures the dashboard with per-user username/password logins and a signed-session secret key, so your VPS stats and private feeds stay behind a login form — no additional reverse-proxy auth layer required. With 30+ first-party widget types covering news aggregators, developer tools, finance tickers, weather, clocks and custom REST API widgets, Glance scales from a simple homelab startpage to a full team operations dashboard.

Key features

30+ first-party widgets — Hacker News, RSS, Reddit, YouTube, GitHub releases, weather, clock, stocks, search, Docker container status, server stats and more.

Under 25 MB RAM — single Go binary, no database, no Redis; runs alongside any existing service on your VPS without adding overhead.

Built-in auth — username/password login with a signed session secret key; configure multiple users in the YAML config.

Single YAML config — add a widget in two lines; update the file and restart the container.

Docker container status widget — see all running containers and their status at a glance (requires /var/run/docker.sock:ro).

Server stats widget — live CPU, RAM, disk and network metrics for your VPS, updated every few seconds.

Multiple pages and column layouts — wide, full-width, two-column and more; group widgets logically per page.

AGPL-3.0 licence — no telemetry, no cloud account, no per-user fee.

When to use this solution?

1

VPS operations dashboard

Mount Glance on your primary VPS and configure it with server-stats and docker-containers widgets. You get a live view of CPU, RAM, disk and the status of every Docker stack running on the server — without SSH-ing into the machine or opening a separate monitoring tool. Pair it with Hacker News or a custom RSS feed widget to make Glance your browser default tab.

2

Developer homelab startpage

Replace your browser's new-tab page with Glance: add a GitHub releases widget tracking your favourite projects, a Hacker News widget for tech news, a search bar and bookmarks to your local services. Everything loads from one lightweight container in under a second. The YAML config makes it trivial to add or remove widgets as your homelab grows.

3

Shared team status board

Host Glance on a shared ServOrbit VPS and point a subdomain at it. Configure widgets for your team's key feeds — deployment status via GitHub releases, server stats, uptime data and a Hacker News digest. Every team member opens the same URL and sees the same up-to-date status board without any additional infrastructure.

Deploy Glance on your VPS

Guide optimized for ServOrbit Cloud VPS.

01

Order a ServOrbit VPS

Any plan from 512 MB RAM upward works. Glance's Go binary idles under 25 MB RAM with all widgets active. Ubuntu 24.04 is recommended. You can run Glance on the same VPS as other services without adding meaningful overhead.

02

Deploy Glance from the ServOrbit marketplace

Open your ServOrbit control panel, go to Marketplace → Monitoring & Observability → Glance, and click Deploy. The provisioning playbook pulls glanceapp/glance:latest, generates a default glance.yml with Hacker News and server-stats widgets and your admin credentials, and starts the container on port 8080. The dashboard is ready in seconds.

03

Log in with your admin credentials

Open http://:8080 in a browser. You will be redirected to the Glance login page. Enter the username admin and the password shown in your ServOrbit control panel. Once logged in, you see the default Home page with a Hacker News feed and live VPS server stats.

04

Customise your dashboard

SSH into your VPS and edit /data/glance.yml (stored in the named Docker volume). Add widget blocks to the columns section — for example, - type: rss with a feeds list, or - type: docker-containers to see all running containers. Save the file and run docker compose restart glance. New widgets appear immediately.

05

Add a custom domain (optional)

Point a subdomain like dash.your-domain.com at the VPS IP in DNS. Install Caddy (apt install caddy) and create /etc/caddy/Caddyfile: dash.your-domain.com { reverse_proxy localhost:8080 }. Caddy automatically provisions a TLS certificate. Close port 8080 in UFW and access Glance exclusively over HTTPS.

Frequently asked questions

Glance (AGPL-3.0, 35.8 k+ stars) is a self-hosted, single-page dashboard written in Go. It consolidates tech news (Hacker News, RSS, Reddit), server metrics, Docker container status, GitHub release timelines, weather and more into a configurable YAML-driven layout. It runs as a single Docker container with no database, idles under 25 MB RAM and starts in under a second.