head to head · open source
NetData vs m3
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. m3 has 4,896 stars, 463 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped today. NetData leads on adoption by 1,546% (80,564 vs 4,896 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; m3 is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, m3 9%. m3 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 | m3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 463 |
| 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 m3 if
- You want the m3 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 m3 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 m3
M3 is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go based monorepo that provides a distributed time series database, query engine, metrics aggregator, and Prometheus sidecar for teams that need to store and query large volumes of metrics on their own infrastructure.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or m3 more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and m3 has 4,896. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and m3 free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and m3 under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and m3?
NetData is written in Go and m3 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 m3?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose m3 if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.