head to head · open source
NetData vs grafana-operator
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grafana-operator has 1,387 stars, 471 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 5,709% (80,564 vs 1,387 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; grafana-operator is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, grafana-operator 34%. 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-operator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 471 |
| 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-operator if
- You want the grafana-operator 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 grafana-operator 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-operator
Grafana Operator is a Go based, Apache 2.0 licensed Kubernetes operator that installs and manages Grafana instances, dashboards and data sources through Kubernetes and OpenShift custom resources, built for platform and observability teams that already run those clusters and want Grafana managed as code.
read the full grafana-operator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or grafana-operator more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and grafana-operator has 1,387. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and grafana-operator free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and grafana-operator under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and grafana-operator?
NetData is written in Go and grafana-operator 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 grafana-operator?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose grafana-operator if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.