head to head · open source
NetData vs hertzbeat
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hertzbeat has 7,451 stars, 1,370 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 991% (81,255 vs 7,451 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; hertzbeat is written in Java under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, hertzbeat 18%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (ai, alerting, database, grafana), 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 | hertzbeat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 hertzbeat if
- You want the hertzbeat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and hertzbeat 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 hertzbeat
Readme : English 中文 日本語 Home: hertzbeat.apache.org Email: Mail to dev subscribe@hertzbeat.apache.org to subscribe mailing lists 🎡 Introduction Apache HertzBeat™ is an AI powered next generation open source real time observability system. Unified metrics and logs collection, centralized alerting distribution, intelligent management and analysis. No Agent required, high performance cluster, provides powerful custom monitoring and status page building capabilities. Features Integrates collection + analysis + alerting + notification into one platform, with new AI powered interactions and features under HertzBeat…
read the full hertzbeat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or hertzbeat more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and hertzbeat has 7,451. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and hertzbeat free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and hertzbeat under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and hertzbeat?
NetData is written in Go and hertzbeat in Java. 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 hertzbeat?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose hertzbeat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.