head to head · open source
NetData vs pmm
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pmm has 1,107 stars, 231 forks, 240 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 7,178% (80,564 vs 1,107 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; pmm is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pmm 21%. pmm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), 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.
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Side by side
| NetData | pmm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 231 |
| 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 pmm if
- You want the pmm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pmm 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 pmm
Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) is an open source database monitoring, observability and management tool, licensed AGPL 3.0, that gives MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Valkey and Redis operators a single pane of glass over database performance, security and availability.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or pmm more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and pmm has 1,107. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and pmm free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pmm under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and pmm?
NetData is written in Go and pmm 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 pmm?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pmm if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.