head to head · open source
NetData vs kmon
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kmon has 2,946 stars, 93 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 2,635% (80,564 vs 2,946 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; kmon is written in Rust under GPL-3.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kmon 3%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (linux), 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 | kmon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 93 |
| 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 kmon if
- You want the kmon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and kmon 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 kmon
kmon is a Linux kernel manager and activity monitor written in Rust that gives system administrators and developers a terminal user interface for inspecting kernel information and managing loadable kernel modules.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or kmon more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and kmon has 2,946. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and kmon free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and kmon under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and kmon?
NetData is written in Go and kmon 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 kmon?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kmon if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.