head to head · open source
NetData vs retina
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. retina has 3,184 stars, 308 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 2,452% (81,255 vs 3,184 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; retina is written in Go under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, retina 10%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kubernetes), 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 | retina | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 308 |
| 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 retina if
- You want the retina feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and retina 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 retina
[![goreport][goreport img]][goreport] ![GitHub release][release img] [![retina publish][godoc badge]][godoc] ![license] [![retina test][retina test image badge]][retina test image] [![retinash][retinash badge]][retinash] [![retina publish][retina publish badge]][retina publish] ![retina codeql img][retina codeql badge] ![retina golangci lint img][retina golangci lint badge] Overview Retina is a cloud agnostic, open source Kubernetes network observability platform that provides a centralized hub for monitoring application health, network health, and security . It provides actionable insights to cluster network…
read the full retina overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or retina more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and retina has 3,184. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and retina free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and retina under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and retina?
NetData is written in Go and retina 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 retina?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose retina if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.