head to head · open source
NetData vs hertzbeat
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hertzbeat has 7,397 stars, 1,331 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 989% (80,561 vs 7,397 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 | ★ 7.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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
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 hertzbeat
Apache HertzBeat is an AI powered, next generation open source real time observability system written in Java under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for teams that need unified metrics and logs collection, centralized alerting distribution, and intelligent management and analysis without deploying an agent on every monitored host.
read the full hertzbeat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or hertzbeat more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and hertzbeat has 7,397. 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 (80,561 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.