head to head · open source
NetData vs opentelemetry-go
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. opentelemetry-go has 6,593 stars, 1,527 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 1,132% (81,255 vs 6,593 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; opentelemetry-go is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, opentelemetry-go 23%. 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 | opentelemetry-go | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 6.6K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 opentelemetry-go if
- You want the opentelemetry-go 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 opentelemetry-go 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 opentelemetry-go
OpenTelemetry Go OpenTelemetry Go is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry. It provides a set of APIs to directly measure performance and behavior of your software and send this data to observability platforms. Project Status Progress and status specific to this repository is tracked in our project boards and milestones. Project versioning information and stability guarantees can be found in the versioning documentation. [^1]: Compatibility OpenTelemetry Go ensures compatibility with the current supported versions of the Go language: Each major Go release is supported until there are two newer major releases…
read the full opentelemetry-go overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or opentelemetry-go more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and opentelemetry-go has 6,593. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and opentelemetry-go free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and opentelemetry-go under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and opentelemetry-go?
NetData is written in Go and opentelemetry-go 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 opentelemetry-go?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose opentelemetry-go if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.