head to head · open source
effect vs node_exporter
effect has 16,097 GitHub stars, 747 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. node_exporter has 13,785 stars, 2,710 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. effect leads on adoption by 17% (16,097 vs 13,785 stars). effect is written in TypeScript under MIT; node_exporter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. effect has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, node_exporter 20%. effect was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| effect | node_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 747 | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick effect if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick node_exporter if
- You want the node_exporter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and node_exporter fits your workflow better
About effect
Effect is a TypeScript library for building robust, maintainable, type safe, and production grade applications. It lives in the TypeScript and JavaScript ecosystem, distributed as the core effect package alongside a monorepo of integration packages that extend it. The project is MIT licensed, has been developed for roughly seven years, and currently ships Effect V4 as a release candidate, with the main branch holding v4 development and the v3 branch retaining the previous line.
read the full effect overview →
About node_exporter
Node exporter is a Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by \ NIX kernels. It is written in Go and ships with pluggable metric collectors, so the set of measurements it gathers can be tuned per host rather than fixed at build time. The project lives in the Prometheus ecosystem, is published under the Apache 2.0 license, and has been developed for roughly thirteen years, with the repository showing 13,782 stars and 2,708 forks at the time of writing.
read the full node_exporter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is effect or node_exporter more popular?
effect has 16,097 GitHub stars and node_exporter has 13,785. effect has the larger community by that measure.
Are effect and node_exporter free?
Both are open source. effect is licensed under MIT and node_exporter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between effect and node_exporter?
effect is written in TypeScript and node_exporter in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, effect or node_exporter?
Choose effect if you want the larger community (16,097 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose node_exporter if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.