head to head · open source
NetData vs cost-xray
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cost-xray has 5,825 stars, 375 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 1,295% (81,255 vs 5,825 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; cost-xray is written in Python under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, cost-xray 6%. 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 | cost-xray | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 375 |
| 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 cost-xray if
- You want the cost-xray feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and cost-xray 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 cost-xray
cost xray See what your AI coding agent actually sends to the API — and what each part costs. Most usage tools read local logs. That shows the total cost of a call or session, but it misses the request time context assembled before the model is invoked: system prompts, tool schemas, MCP blocks, tool results, cache reads/writes, and previous thinking blocks. cost xray captures the actual local API traffic for Claude Code and Codex, then attributes tokens and dollars back to the sources inside the request. It shows not just how much a turn cost, but why it cost that much. Home — every session by agent · project ·…
read the full cost-xray overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or cost-xray more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and cost-xray has 5,825. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and cost-xray free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and cost-xray under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and cost-xray?
NetData is written in Go and cost-xray in Python. 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 cost-xray?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose cost-xray if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.