head to head · open source
NetData vs m3
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. m3 has 4,909 stars, 460 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 1,555% (81,255 vs 4,909 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%. NetData 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 460 |
| 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
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 m3
M3 [![GoDoc][doc img]][doc] [![Build Status][ci img]][ci] [![FOSSA Status][fossa img]][fossa] Distributed TSDB and Query Engine, Prometheus Sidecar, Metrics Aggregator, and more such as Graphite storage and query engine. Table of Contents More Information Install Dependencies Usage Contributing More Information Documentation Contributing Slack Forum (Google Group) Community Meetings You can find recordings of past meetups here: . Install Dependencies The simplest and quickest way to try M3 is to use Docker, read the M3 quickstart section for other options. This example uses jq to format the output of API calls…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or m3 more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and m3 has 4,909. 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 (81,255 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.