head to head · open source
NetData vs gtop
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gtop has 9,934 stars, 339 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 718% (81,255 vs 9,934 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; gtop is written in JavaScript under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, gtop 3%. 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 | gtop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 339 |
| 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 gtop if
- You want the gtop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and gtop 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 gtop
gtop System monitoring dashboard for terminal. Requirements Linux / OSX / Windows (partial support) Node.js = v8 Installation Docker You need to assign host net and pid to access the metrics in the host machine. Usage Start gtop with the gtop command To stop gtop use q , or ctrl+c in most shell environments. You can sort the process table by pressing p : Process Id c : CPU usage m : Memory usage Troubleshooting If you see question marks or other different characters, try to run it with these environment variables: License Released under the MIT license.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or gtop more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and gtop has 9,934. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and gtop free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and gtop under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and gtop?
NetData is written in Go and gtop in JavaScript. 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 gtop?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gtop if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.