head to head · open source
NetData vs grafana-dashboards-kubernetes
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. grafana-dashboards-kubernetes has 3,798 stars, 485 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 2,021% (80,564 vs 3,798 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; grafana-dashboards-kubernetes is written in various languages under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, grafana-dashboards-kubernetes 13%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (grafana, 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 | grafana-dashboards-kubernetes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-04-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 485 |
| 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 grafana-dashboards-kubernetes if
- You want the grafana-dashboards-kubernetes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes 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 grafana-dashboards-kubernetes
grafana dashboards kubernetes Table of contents Description Releases Features Dashboards Installation Install manually Install via grafana.com Install with ArgoCD Install with Helm values Install as ConfigMaps Install as ConfigMaps with Terraform Install as GrafanaDashboard with Grafana Operator Known issue(s) Broken panels due to a too high resolution Broken panels on k8s views nodes when a node changes its IP address Broken panels on k8s views nodes due to the nodename label Windows support Contributing Description This repository contains a modern set of Grafana dashboards for Kubernetes.\ They are inspired by…
read the full grafana-dashboards-kubernetes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or grafana-dashboards-kubernetes more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes has 3,798. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes?
NetData is written in Go and grafana-dashboards-kubernetes in various languages. 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 grafana-dashboards-kubernetes?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose grafana-dashboards-kubernetes if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.