head to head · open source
NetData vs Gatus
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Gatus has 12,095 stars, 828 forks, 382 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 566% (80,561 vs 12,095 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; Gatus is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Gatus 7%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (alerting, devops, docker), 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 | Gatus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 828 |
| 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 Gatus if
- You want the Gatus 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 Gatus 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 Gatus
Gatus is an open source health dashboard and status page for monitoring services in real time. It is written in Go, licensed under Apache 2.0, and appears in the Infrastructure & Operations / Monitoring & Observability category. The project presents a developer oriented interface for checking whether services are reachable and behaving as expected.
read the full Gatus overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or Gatus more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and Gatus has 12,095. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and Gatus free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Gatus under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and Gatus?
NetData is written in Go and Gatus 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 Gatus?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Gatus if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.