head to head · open source
NetData vs pyroscope
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pyroscope has 11,661 stars, 802 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 591% (80,561 vs 11,661 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; pyroscope is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pyroscope 7%. pyroscope was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (devops, 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.
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Side by side
| NetData | pyroscope | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 802 |
| 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 pyroscope if
- You want the pyroscope 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 pyroscope 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 pyroscope
Grafana Pyroscope is a continuous profiling platform for developers, SREs, and platform teams who need to find CPU, memory, and I/O bottlenecks in running applications and trace them down to a single line of code.
read the full pyroscope overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or pyroscope more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and pyroscope has 11,661. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and pyroscope free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pyroscope under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and pyroscope?
NetData is written in Go and pyroscope 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 pyroscope?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pyroscope if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.