head to head · open source
NetData vs kubetail
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. kubetail has 1,761 stars, 126 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 4,475% (80,564 vs 1,761 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; kubetail is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kubetail 7%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (devops, 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 | kubetail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 126 |
| 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 kubetail if
- You want the kubetail 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 kubetail 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 kubetail
Kubetail Kubetail is a real time logging dashboard for Kubernetes Demo: English 简体中文 日本語 한국어 Deutsch Español Português Français Introduction Kubetail is a general purpose logging dashboard for Kubernetes, optimized for tailing logs across multi container workloads in real time. With Kubetail, you can view logs from all the containers in a workload (e.g. Deployment or DaemonSet) merged into a single, chronological timeline, delivered to your browser or terminal. The primary entry point for Kubetail is the kubetail CLI tool, which can launch a local web dashboard on your desktop or stream raw logs directly to your …
read the full kubetail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or kubetail more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and kubetail has 1,761. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and kubetail free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and kubetail under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and kubetail?
NetData is written in Go and kubetail 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 kubetail?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kubetail if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.