head to head · open source
NetData vs sensu-go
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sensu-go has 1,112 stars, 180 forks, 274 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 7,145% (80,564 vs 1,112 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; sensu-go is written in Go under MIT. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, sensu-go 16%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (alerting, devops), 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.
← all 13541 open source comparisons
Side by side
| NetData | sensu-go | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 180 |
| 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 sensu-go if
- You want the sensu-go feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sensu-go 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 sensu-go
Sensu Go is an MIT licensed, agent based monitoring system written in Go for ephemeral infrastructure and distributed applications, built for DevOps, platform, and operations teams running cloud and multi cloud environments.
read the full sensu-go 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 sensu-go more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and sensu-go has 1,112. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and sensu-go free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and sensu-go under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and sensu-go?
NetData is written in Go and sensu-go 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 sensu-go?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sensu-go if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.