Grafana vs Netdata

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureGrafanaNetdata
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, helmdocker, bare-metal, kubernetes
GitHub stars★ 76,153★ 80,075
First released20142013
ReplacesDatadogDatadog, New Relic

Why pick each one

Choose Grafana if…

  • Beautiful flexible dashboards
  • Broad data source support
  • Strong community
Grafana details

Choose Netdata if…

  • Instant insight out of the box
  • Beautiful real-time charts
  • Easy install
Netdata details

Frequently asked questions

Is Grafana or Netdata better?

Netdata is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Grafana if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Grafana and Netdata free and open-source?

Yes. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Netdata under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Grafana and Netdata with Docker?

Grafana: yes. Netdata: yes.

Related comparisons