head to head · open source
NetData vs opentelemetry-go
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. opentelemetry-go has 6,553 stars, 1,473 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 1,129% (80,561 vs 6,553 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 22%. 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 | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 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
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 opentelemetry-go
OpenTelemetry Go is the Go implementation of OpenTelemetry, the vendor neutral observability framework. It provides a set of APIs that let Go programs directly measure the performance and behavior of their own software, then send the resulting telemetry to observability platforms. The project lives in the Go ecosystem and is distributed as the module go.opentelemetry.io/otel , published on pkg.go.dev and licensed under Apache 2.0. It is a long running, actively maintained repository, roughly seven years old, with a large contributor base and a steady release cadence.
read the full opentelemetry-go overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or opentelemetry-go more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and opentelemetry-go has 6,553. 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 (80,561 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.