head to head · open source
NetData vs plog
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plog has 2,597 stars, 407 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 28 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 3,029% (81,255 vs 2,597 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; plog is written in C++ under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, plog 16%. 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 | plog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 407 |
| 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 plog if
- You want the plog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and plog 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 plog
Plog portable, simple and extensible C++ logging library Pretty powerful logging library in about 1000 lines of code Introduction Hello log! Features Integration Copy the source Git submodule CMake integration add subdirectory FetchContent Package managers Usage Step 1: Adding includes Step 2: Initialization RollingFileInitializer ConsoleInitializer Manual initialization (Init.h) Step 3: Logging Basic logging macros Conditional logging macros Logger severity checker Advanced usage Changing severity at runtime Custom initialization Multiple appenders Multiple loggers Share log instances across modules (exe, dll…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or plog more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and plog has 2,597. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and plog free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and plog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and plog?
NetData is written in Go and plog 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 plog?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose plog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.