head to head · open source
NetData vs MangoHud
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. MangoHud has 9,041 stars, 428 forks, 336 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 791% (80,564 vs 9,041 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; MangoHud is written in C under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, MangoHud 5%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (linux), 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 | MangoHud | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 428 |
| 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 MangoHud if
- You want the MangoHud feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and MangoHud 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 MangoHud
MangoHud is an MIT licensed Vulkan and OpenGL overlay written in C that draws FPS, frametimes, temperatures and CPU/GPU load on top of Linux applications, built for Linux gamers, benchmarkers and anyone profiling a GPU workload.
read the full MangoHud overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or MangoHud more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and MangoHud has 9,041. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and MangoHud free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and MangoHud under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and MangoHud?
NetData is written in Go and MangoHud 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 MangoHud?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MangoHud if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.