head to head · open source
NetData vs calico
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calico has 7,358 stars, 1,606 forks, 279 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 995% (80,561 vs 7,358 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; calico is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, calico 22%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kubernetes), 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 | calico | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 calico if
- You want the calico 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 calico fits your workflow better
About NetData
Netdata is an open source, real time infrastructure monitoring platform written in Go and released under GPL 3.0, built for operators and lean teams who need per second visibility across Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and Windows systems.
read the full NetData overview →
About calico
Calico is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed cloud native networking and network security project for Kubernetes clusters, maintained by Tigera and aimed at platform engineers, cluster operators and network teams who need container networking, network policy enforcement and encryption across on premises, cloud and bare metal environments.
read the full calico overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or calico more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and calico has 7,358. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and calico free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and calico under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and calico?
NetData is written in Go and calico 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 calico?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose calico if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.