head to head · open source
NetData vs kindling
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kindling has 1,064 stars, 166 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 7,472% (80,564 vs 1,064 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; kindling is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kindling 16%. 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 | kindling | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-07-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 166 |
| 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 kindling if
- You want the kindling feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kindling 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 kindling
Kindling is an Apache 2.0 licensed, eBPF based cloud native monitoring tool written in Go that helps Kubernetes operators, SREs and application developers understand application behaviour from the kernel up to the code stack.
read the full kindling overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or kindling more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and kindling has 1,064. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and kindling free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and kindling under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and kindling?
NetData is written in Go and kindling in Go. 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 kindling?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kindling if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.