head to head · open source
metrics vs node_exporter
metrics has 17,202 GitHub stars, 2,275 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. node_exporter has 13,785 stars, 2,710 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. metrics leads on adoption by 25% (17,202 vs 13,785 stars). metrics is written in JavaScript under MIT; node_exporter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. metrics has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, node_exporter 20%. node_exporter was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (metrics), 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
| metrics | node_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-05-29 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick metrics if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 metrics
Metrics is an infographics generator for GitHub accounts, published under the MIT license and written in JavaScript. It lives in the GitHub ecosystem as a GitHub Action and as a hosted web service, and it produces statistics about a user, an organization, or a repository. The output is rendered as SVG, Markdown, PDF, or JSON, which means the same generated figures can be embedded in a profile readme, attached to a blog post, or consumed by another tool.
read the full metrics 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 metrics or node_exporter more popular?
metrics has 17,202 GitHub stars and node_exporter has 13,785. metrics has the larger community by that measure.
Are metrics and node_exporter free?
Both are open source. metrics is licensed under MIT and node_exporter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between metrics and node_exporter?
metrics is written in JavaScript 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, metrics or node_exporter?
Choose metrics if you want the larger community (17,202 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.