head to head · open source
NetData vs hl
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hl has 3,317 stars, 68 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 2,350% (81,255 vs 3,317 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; hl is written in Rust under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, hl 2%. 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 | hl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 68 |
| 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 hl if
- You want the hl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and hl 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 hl
hl [![Build Status][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][cov img]][cov] [![Release][release img]][release] High performance log viewer and processor that transforms logs in JSON and logfmt formats into a human readable output. Built with efficiency in mind, it enables quick parsing and analysis of large log files with minimal overhead. Features overview Automatic Pager Integration : Automatically integrates with a pager for enhanced convenience, defaulting to less if available, but fully supporting any compatible pager. Log Streaming Mode : Enable log streaming with the P flag, which disables the pager. Field Based…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or hl more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and hl has 3,317. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and hl free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and hl under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and hl?
NetData is written in Go and hl in Rust. 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 hl?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose hl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.