head to head · open source
NetData vs psutil
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. psutil has 11,313 stars, 1,539 forks, 258 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 618% (81,255 vs 11,313 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; psutil is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, psutil 14%. 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 | psutil | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 11K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 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 psutil if
- You want the psutil feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and psutil 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 psutil
.. .. raw:: html Process and System Utilities for Python Documentation Blog Who uses psutil .. About ===== psutil is a cross platform library for retrieving information about running processes and system utilization (CPU, memory, disks, network, sensors) in Python. It is useful mainly for system monitoring , profiling , limiting process resources , and managing running processes . It implements many functionalities offered by UNIX command line tool such as ps, top, free, iotop, netstat, ifconfig, lsof and others (see shell equivalents ). Psutil supports the following platforms: Linux Windows macOS FreeBSD…
read the full psutil overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or psutil more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and psutil has 11,313. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and psutil free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and psutil under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and psutil?
NetData is written in Go and psutil 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 psutil?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose psutil if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.