head to head · open source
NetData vs airframe
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. airframe has 666 stars, 67 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 12,100% (81,255 vs 666 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; airframe is written in Scala under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, airframe 10%. NetData 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
| NetData | airframe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 666 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 67 |
| 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 airframe if
- You want the airframe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and airframe 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 airframe
[![Gitter Chat][gitter badge]][gitter link] [![CI Status][gha badge]][gha link] [![scala index][sindex badge]][sindex link] [![maven central][central badge]][central link] [circleci badge]: [circleci link]: [gha badge]: [gha link]: [gitter badge]: [gitter link]: [coverall badge]: [coverall link]: [sindex badge]: [sindex link]: [central badge]: [central link]: Airframe is essential building blocks for developing applications in Scala, including logging, object serialization using JSON or MessagePack, dependency injection, http server/client with RPC support, functional testing with AirSpec, etc. Resources…
read the full airframe overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or airframe more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and airframe has 666. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and airframe free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and airframe under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and airframe?
NetData is written in Go and airframe in Scala. 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 airframe?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose airframe if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.