head to head · open source
NetData vs nginx-lua-prometheus
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nginx-lua-prometheus has 1,566 stars, 238 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 5,045% (80,564 vs 1,566 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; nginx-lua-prometheus is written in Lua under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, nginx-lua-prometheus 15%. 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 | nginx-lua-prometheus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 238 |
| 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 nginx-lua-prometheus if
- You want the nginx-lua-prometheus feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and nginx-lua-prometheus 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 nginx-lua-prometheus
nginx lua prometheus is an MIT licensed Lua library that lets Nginx record counters, gauges, and histograms inside a shared dictionary and expose them on a dedicated HTTP endpoint for Prometheus to scrape, and it is aimed at operators running OpenResty or a Lua enabled Nginx who want to instrument the request path directly rather than through a sidecar.
read the full nginx-lua-prometheus overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or nginx-lua-prometheus more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and nginx-lua-prometheus has 1,566. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and nginx-lua-prometheus free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and nginx-lua-prometheus under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and nginx-lua-prometheus?
NetData is written in Go and nginx-lua-prometheus in Lua. 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 nginx-lua-prometheus?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nginx-lua-prometheus if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.