head to head · open source
NetData vs slog
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. slog has 1,708 stars, 98 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 4,617% (80,564 vs 1,708 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; slog is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, slog 6%. 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 | slog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 98 |
| 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 slog if
- You want the slog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and slog 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 slog
Getting started Introduction FAQ Crate list slog rs The Logging for [Rust][rust] You might consider using tracing instead It's been a while since slog was created and it served Rust community well all this time. It remains a stable, featureful and battle tested library, used in many important projects. In last few years, another ecosystem for Rust was created with similar features and a very good support for debugging async code and already larger dev team and community. Please check tracing and see if it is more suitable for your use case. It seems that it is already a go to logging/tracing solution for Rust. Re…
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or slog more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and slog has 1,708. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and slog free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and slog under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and slog?
NetData is written in Go and slog in Rust. 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 slog?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose slog if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.