head to head · open source
NetData vs jaeger
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger has 23,366 stars, 3,220 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 248% (81,255 vs 23,366 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, jaeger 14%. jaeger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cncf), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| NetData | jaeger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 23K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick NetData if
- You weight community size — 81K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jaeger if
- You want the jaeger 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 jaeger fits your workflow better
About NetData
X Ray Vision for your infrastructure! Every Metric, Every Second. No BS. Visit our Home Page MENU: WHO WE ARE KEY FEATURES GETTING STARTED HOW IT WORKS FAQ DOCS COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTE LICENSE [!WARNING] People get addicted to Netdata. Once you use it on your systems, there's no going back. WHO WE ARE Netdata is an open source, real time infrastructure monitoring platform. Monitor, detect, and act across your entire infrastructure. Core Advantages: Instant Insights – With Netdata you can access per second metrics and visualizations. Zero Configuration – You can deploy immediately without complex setup. ML Powered –…
read the full NetData overview →
About jaeger
[![Slack chat][slack img]]( get in touch) [![Unit Tests][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][cov img]][cov] [![Project+Community stats][community badge]][community stats] [![FOSSA Status][fossa img]][fossa] [![OpenSSF Scorecard][openssf img]][openssf] [![OpenSSF Best Practices][openssf bp img]][openssf bp] [![CLOMonitor][clomonitor img]][clomonitor] [![Artifact Hub][artifacthub img]][artifacthub] Jaeger a Distributed Tracing System 💥💥💥 Jaeger v2 is out! Read the blog post and try it out. Quick Start Get Jaeger running in seconds with Docker: For production deployments and more options, see the Getting Started…
read the full jaeger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or jaeger more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and jaeger has 23,366. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and jaeger free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and jaeger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and jaeger?
NetData is written in Go and jaeger 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, NetData or jaeger?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose jaeger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.