head to head · open source
NetData vs pcm
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pcm has 3,353 stars, 532 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 2,323% (81,255 vs 3,353 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; pcm is written in C++ under BSD-3-Clause. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pcm 16%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| NetData | pcm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 532 |
| 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 pcm if
- You want the pcm 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 pcm 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 pcm
Intel® Performance Counter Monitor (Intel® PCM) PCM Tools Building PCM Downloading Pre Compiled PCM FAQ API Documentation Environment Variables Compilation Options Intel® Performance Counter Monitor (Intel® PCM) is an application programming interface (API) and a set of tools based on the API to monitor performance and energy metrics of Intel® Core™, Xeon®, Atom™ and Xeon Phi™ processors. PCM works on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD and ChromeOS operating systems. Github repository statistics: We welcome bug reports and enhancement requests, which can be submitted…
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or pcm more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and pcm has 3,353. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and pcm free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pcm under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and pcm?
NetData is written in Go and pcm 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 pcm?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pcm if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.