head to head · open source
NetData vs hubble
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hubble has 4,376 stars, 305 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 1,757% (81,255 vs 4,376 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; hubble is written in Makefile under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, hubble 7%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | hubble | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Makefile |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 305 |
| 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 hubble if
- You want the hubble feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Makefile
- You evaluated both and hubble 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 hubble
Network, Service & Security Observability for Kubernetes What is Hubble? Getting Started Features Service Dependency Graph Metrics & Monitoring Flow Visibility Get in touch / Community Authors What is Hubble? Hubble is a fully distributed networking and security observability platform for cloud native workloads. It is built on top of [Cilium] and [eBPF] to enable deep visibility into the communication and behavior of services as well as the networking infrastructure in a completely transparent manner. Hubble can answer questions such as: Service dependencies & communication map: What services are communicating…
read the full hubble overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or hubble more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and hubble has 4,376. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and hubble free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and hubble under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and hubble?
NetData is written in Go and hubble in Makefile. 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 hubble?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose hubble if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.