head to head · open source
NetData vs file.d
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. file.d has 507 stars, 267 forks, 73 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 15,927% (81,255 vs 507 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; file.d is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, file.d 53%. 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 | file.d | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 507 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 267 |
| 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 file.d if
- You want the file.d feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and file.d 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 file.d
Overview file.d is a blazing fast tool for building data pipelines: read, process, and output events. Primarily developed to read from files, but also supports numerous input/action/output plugins. ⚠ Although we use it in production, it still isn't v1.0.0 . Please, test your pipelines carefully on dev/stage environments. Contributing file.d is an open source project and contributions are very welcome! Please make sure to read our contributing guide before creating an issue and opening a PR! Motivation Well, we already have several similar tools: vector, filebeat, logstash, fluend d, fluent bit, etc. Performance…
read the full file.d overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or file.d more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and file.d has 507. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and file.d free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and file.d under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and file.d?
NetData is written in Go and file.d 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 file.d?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose file.d if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.