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PM2 VS s6

Compare PM2 VS s6 and see what are their differences

PM2 logo PM2

Advanced, production process manager for Node.js

s6 logo s6

s6 is a small suite of programs for UNIX, designed for process supervision. It can be used as an init system, or as separate supervision components.
  • PM2 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-18
  • s6 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-05-25

PM2 features and specs

  • Process Management
    PM2 provides efficient process management, allowing you to easily start, stop, and restart applications. It handles the daemonization of processes and ensures that all your services run continuously.
  • Monitoring & Logging
    PM2 offers robust monitoring and logging features, providing real-time metrics on CPU and memory usage, along with comprehensive logging to help debug issues and monitor application performance.
  • Cluster Mode
    PM2 supports cluster mode, enabling you to run multiple instances of your application to utilize multi-core systems effectively, thereby improving performance and handling more traffic.
  • Easy Deployment
    With PM2, deployment is simplified through built-in functionalities like management of environment variables and automatic startup scripts, making it easier to deploy applications across environments.
  • Platform Agnostic
    PM2 is platform-agnostic and can be used with diverse environments and languages, though it is optimized for Node.js applications, offering flexibility to manage various types of applications.

Possible disadvantages of PM2

  • Overhead
    While PM2 is lightweight, it can add some overhead, particularly in smaller or simpler applications where its full range of features may not be necessary.
  • Configuration Complexity
    For new users or simple applications, PM2's configuration options may seem complex, with a steep learning curve to understand and leverage all available features effectively.
  • Memory Usage
    PM2's memory usage can be higher compared to more minimal solutions, which might be a concern for resource-constrained environments or small-scale projects.
  • Limited to JavaScript by Default
    Although you can manage other types of applications, PM2 is primarily designed for Node.js, so managing non-JavaScript applications could require additional effort or wrappers.
  • Potential Issues with Large Projects
    In some cases, PM2 may face challenges scaling very large projects due to its process management design, requiring more thorough testing and configuration tuning.

s6 features and specs

  • Modularity
    s6 is designed with a modular architecture, allowing users to pick and choose components according to their needs, offering great flexibility.
  • Reliability
    It is built to be extremely reliable, focusing on keeping services running and recovering from failures promptly.
  • Minimal Overhead
    s6 is lightweight, maintaining minimal overhead which makes it suitable for minimalistic systems and embedded environments.
  • Cross-Platform
    s6 works across different Unix-like operating systems, providing a consistent way to manage services across various platforms.
  • Active Development
    The system is actively maintained and developed, ensuring ongoing improvements and support for new features.

Possible disadvantages of s6

  • Complexity
    The modular nature can make it complex to configure and set up for new users unfamiliar with its architecture.
  • Limited Documentation
    Although there is documentation available, it may not be as comprehensive or accessible as that of more widely-used systems like systemd.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Users accustomed to other init systems might find the learning curve steep when transitioning to s6, due to its unique approach and design.
  • Community Size
    The community around s6 is relatively small compared to more popular init systems, which might result in fewer community-driven resources.
  • Compatibility
    Not all third-party packages or distributions support s6 out of the box, potentially requiring additional effort for integration.

PM2 videos

The Spyderco Paramilitary 2 (PM2) Pocketknife: The Full Nick Shabazz Review

More videos:

  • Review - Cut or Carry: Spyderco PM2 ParaMilitary 2 Review
  • Review - Spyderco Paramilitary 2 S110V Long-Term Review (Best value PM2?)

s6 videos

Samsung Galaxy S6 Review!

More videos:

  • Review - Galaxy Tab S6 Honest Review - Only one issue..
  • Review - Samsung Galaxy S6 In 2020! (Still Worth It?) (Review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PM2 and s6)
Monitoring Tools
60 60%
40% 40
Log Management
48 48%
52% 52
Performance Monitoring
59 59%
41% 41
Fintech
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using PM2 and s6. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PM2 should be more popular than s6. It has been mentiond 57 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PM2 mentions (57)

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s6 mentions (12)

  • Way too many ways to wait on a child process with a timeout
    Not so much about timeouts, but related in that it is based around managing children processes: The lineage of tools descending from daemontools for service management is worth exploring: daemontools: http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html runit: https://smarden.org/runit/ s6: https://skarnet.org/software/s6/ dinit: https://davmac.org/projects/dinit/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Which do you use systemd or openrc? Why do you use what you use?
    This page and this page, both by Laurent Bercot, creator of s6. Source: about 2 years ago
  • init software: What's the difference?
    Of the two I have experience with, runit is simpler and thus easier to get the hang of than s6-rc/s6. Though the s6 (not s6-rc) docs at the author's site contain a lot of info (including apologetics and rationales) that applies almost equally well to runit. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Trouble with s6 services
    Using the s6-service add command I added a service called "libvertd" when I ment to put "libvirtd". Now when I run s6-db-reload it spits out a error message saying "undefined service name libvertd". But I cant remove it using s6-service remove libvertd because that just spits out a generic help message and doesn't change anything. I also couldn't find documentation on Https://skarnet.org/software/s6/ or... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Alpine Linux is reducing dependencies on Busybox
    For the trivia, this is pushed by Laurent Bercot (skarnet), creator of s6, execline and many others. He's also working on implementing s6 as Alpine init and rc systems. https://skarnet.org/software/s6/ https://skarnet.com/projects/service-manager.html. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing PM2 and s6, you can also consider the following products

Supervisor - Supervisor is a client/server system that allows its users to monitor and control a number of...

runit - runit is a cross-platform Unix init scheme with service supervision, a replacement for sysvinit...

systemd - systemd is a replacement for the init daemon for Linux (either System V or BSD-style).

M/Monit - Monit is a free open source utility for managing and monitoring, processes, files, directories and filesystems on a UNIX system. Monit conducts automatic maintenance and repair and can execute meaningful causal actions in error situations.

Dinit - Dinit is a service supervisor with dependency support which can also act as the system "init" program.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.