head to head · open source
NetData vs lnav
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lnav has 10,777 stars, 414 forks, 295 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 654% (81,255 vs 10,777 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; lnav is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, lnav 4%. 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 | lnav | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 11K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 414 |
| 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 lnav if
- You want the lnav feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and lnav 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 lnav
This is the source repository for lnav , visit for a high level overview. LNAV The Logfile Navigator The Logfile Navigator is a log file viewer for the terminal. Given a set of files/directories, lnav will: decompress as needed; detect their format; merge the files by time into a single view; tail the files, follow renames, find new files in directories; build an index of errors and warnings; pretty print JSON lines. Then, in the lnav TUI, you can: jump quickly to the previous/next error (press e / E ); search using regular expressions (press / ); highlight text with a regular expression ( :highlight command)…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or lnav more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and lnav has 10,777. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and lnav free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lnav under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and lnav?
NetData is written in Go and lnav in C++. 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 lnav?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose lnav if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.