head to head · open source
NetData vs NLog
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NLog has 6,546 stars, 1,377 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 1,141% (81,255 vs 6,546 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; NLog is written in C# under BSD-3-Clause. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, NLog 21%. 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 | NLog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 NLog if
- You want the NLog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and NLog 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 NLog
NLog is a free logging platform for .NET with rich log routing and management capabilities. It makes it easy to produce and manage high quality logs for your application regardless of its size or complexity. Handles both structured logging and traditional logging from any .NET language, augment with contextual information, format according to your preference and send them to one or more targets such as file or console. Major and minor releases will be posted on project news. Getting started .NET Framework ASP.NET Core .NET Core Console For the possible options in the config, check the Options list and API…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or NLog more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and NLog has 6,546. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and NLog free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and NLog under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and NLog?
NetData is written in Go and NLog 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 NLog?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose NLog if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.