head to head · open source
NetData vs lnav
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lnav has 10,675 stars, 403 forks, 295 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 655% (80,561 vs 10,675 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 | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 403 |
| 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
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 lnav
lnav is a log file viewer for the terminal that decompresses, detects the format of, merges, indexes and queries log files in one interactive text interface, built for developers, system administrators and support engineers who diagnose systems from the command line.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or lnav more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and lnav has 10,675. 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 (80,561 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.