Idle Pod monitor

Monitor your idle & unused Pods

Idle Pod Monitor is a tool that helps you save money by providing a way to manage Pods that are not being utilized or forgot to turn off. The repository provides either a self-contained CLI script that can be executed inside of a Pod directly for self-Pod idle monitoring or a Runpod template for team level Pod management and monitoring with a full-on UI.

Configuration modes

The monitor operates in two modes:

🛑 Auto-Stop mode

Automatically stops (not terminates) Pods when utilization falls below defined thresholds for a specified duration.

• Saves: GPU/CPU compute costs
• Preserves: Pod /workspace storage

📊 Monitor-only mode

Tracks and alerts on idle Pods without taking action.

• Purpose: Surface idle Pods for manual review
• Benefit: Visibility into resource utilization patterns

Quick deployment for team level monitoring

Deploy the team monitor on Runpod: Deploy template

Make sure to select CPU pod and not GPU pod, when deploying for the template to show up.

For the cheapest option, run on a CPU Pod. The monitor automatically excludes itself from monitoring.

Quick deployment for self-Pod monitoring

For individual Pod monitoring without external dependencies, use the self-contained CLI version that runs directly in your Pod.

apt-get update && apt-get install -y tmux curl && \
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/justinwlin/Runpod-Idle-Pod-Monitor/refs/heads/main/self-contained/quick_install.sh -o /tmp/quick_install.sh && \
chmod +x /tmp/quick_install.sh && /tmp/quick_install.sh

How it works

Define idle thresholds for your Pods (e.g., ≤1% GPU, CPU, or memory usage). The monitor samples utilization every minute:

• Below threshold: Counter increments toward your defined duration limit
• Above threshold: Counter resets, monitoring continues
• Duration reached: Triggers auto-stop or alert based on your configuration

This ensures Pods are only flagged as idle after sustained low utilization, preventing false positives from temporary dips.

Team level monitoring feature preview

Home dashboard

Main dashboard showing Pod status, real-time monitoring, and quick actions for managing your Pods*

Configuration management

Configure auto-stop settings, set CPU/GPU/memory thresholds

Monitoring table

Table view of Pods versus their threshold monitoring

Performance metrics

Visualize historical usage data