head to head · open source
NetData vs picologging
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. picologging has 780 stars, 29 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 10,229% (80,564 vs 780 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; picologging is written in Python under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, picologging 4%. 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 | picologging | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 780 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 29 |
| 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 picologging if
- You want the picologging feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and picologging 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 picologging
Picologging is a high performance logging library for Python, published by Microsoft under the MIT licence, that works as a drop in replacement for the standard library logging module and is aimed at Python developers who want faster logging without rewriting existing logging code.
read the full picologging overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or picologging more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and picologging has 780. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and picologging free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and picologging under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and picologging?
NetData is written in Go and picologging in Python. 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 picologging?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose picologging if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.