head to head · open source
NetData vs semantic_logger
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. semantic_logger has 956 stars, 139 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 8,327% (80,564 vs 956 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; semantic_logger is written in Ruby under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, semantic_logger 15%. 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| NetData | semantic_logger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 956 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 139 |
| 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 semantic_logger if
- You want the semantic_logger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and semantic_logger 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 semantic_logger
Semantic Logger is a high performance, asynchronous structured logging framework for Ruby and Rails that pushes log events onto an in memory queue and writes them to one or more destinations from a separate background thread.
read the full semantic_logger overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or semantic_logger more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and semantic_logger has 956. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and semantic_logger free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and semantic_logger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and semantic_logger?
NetData is written in Go and semantic_logger in Ruby. 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 semantic_logger?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose semantic_logger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.