head to head · open source
NetData vs snmp_exporter
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. snmp_exporter has 2,171 stars, 747 forks, 103 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 3,611% (80,564 vs 2,171 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; snmp_exporter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, snmp_exporter 34%. 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 | snmp_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 747 |
| 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 snmp_exporter if
- You want the snmp_exporter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and snmp_exporter 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 snmp_exporter
Prometheus SNMP Exporter [ ][quay] [ ][hub] This exporter is the recommended way to expose SNMP data in a format which Prometheus can ingest. To simply get started, it's recommended to use the if mib module with switches, access points, or routers using the public v2 auth module, which should be a read only access community on the target device. Note, community strings in SNMP are not considered secrets, as they are sent unencrypted in SNMP v1 and v2c. For secure access, SNMP v3 is required. Concepts While SNMP uses a hierarchical data structure and Prometheus uses an n dimensional matrix, the two systems map per…
read the full snmp_exporter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or snmp_exporter more popular?
NetData has 80,564 GitHub stars and snmp_exporter has 2,171. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and snmp_exporter free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and snmp_exporter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and snmp_exporter?
NetData is written in Go and snmp_exporter 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 snmp_exporter?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,564 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose snmp_exporter if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.