Netdata vs Pushgateway
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Netdata
Real-time per-second infrastructure monitoring
VS
Pushgateway
Push acceptor for ephemeral and batch job metrics
| Feature | Netdata | Pushgateway |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, kubernetes | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 80,637 | ★ 3,369 |
| First released | 2013 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Datadog, New Relic | Datadog |
What are Netdata and Pushgateway?
Netdata
Netdata is a real-time monitoring agent that collects thousands of metrics per second and visualizes them with zero configuration. It targets administrators who want instant, granular system insight. It is deployed via Docker or native packages.
- Per-second real-time metrics
- Zero-configuration auto-discovery
- Built-in anomaly detection
- Thousands of collectors
Pushgateway
The Prometheus Pushgateway allows ephemeral and batch jobs to expose their metrics to Prometheus. Jobs push metrics to the gateway, which Prometheus then scrapes on its regular schedule.
- Accepts pushed metrics
- Bridges batch jobs to Prometheus
- Persists metrics to disk
- Tiny footprint
Netdata vs Pushgateway: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Netdata versus Apache-2.0 for Pushgateway. Pushgateway is the lighter option, starting around 32 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Netdata. Netdata is the more established project (first released 2013), while Pushgateway arrived in 2015. Netdata has the considerably larger community, at 80,637 GitHub stars versus 3,369.
Why pick each one
Choose Netdata if…
- Instant insight out of the box
- Beautiful real-time charts
- Easy install
Watch out for
- Long retention needs tuning
- Cloud features are commercial
Choose Pushgateway if…
- Solves batch job monitoring
- Simple to run
Watch out for
- Not for high-frequency metrics
- Can become a single point of failure
Frequently asked questions
Is Netdata or Pushgateway better?
Neither is universally better. Netdata has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Netdata and Pushgateway free and open-source?
Yes. Netdata is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Pushgateway under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Netdata and Pushgateway with Docker?
Netdata: yes. Pushgateway: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Netdata or Pushgateway?
Pushgateway has the smaller minimum footprint at 32 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Netdata. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.