head to head · open source
NetData vs snmp_exporter
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. snmp_exporter has 2,193 stars, 749 forks, 103 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. NetData leads on adoption by 3,605% (81,255 vs 2,193 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| NetData | snmp_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 749 |
| 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
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 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…
read the full snmp_exporter 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 snmp_exporter more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and snmp_exporter has 2,193. 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 (81,255 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.