head to head · open source
NetData vs telemetry
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars, 6,717 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. telemetry has 923 stars, 76 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 8,703% (81,255 vs 923 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; telemetry is written in Erlang under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, telemetry 8%. 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 | telemetry | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 923 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Erlang |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.7K | ⑂ 76 |
| 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 telemetry if
- You want the telemetry feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Erlang
- You evaluated both and telemetry 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 telemetry
Telemetry Documentation Telemetry is a lightweight library for dynamic dispatching of events, with a focus on metrics and instrumentation. Any Erlang or Elixir library can use telemetry to emit events. Application code and other libraries can then hook into those events and run custom handlers. Note: this library is agnostic to tooling and therefore is not directly related to OpenTelemetry. For OpenTelemetry in the Erlang VM, see opentelemetry erlang, and check opentelemetry telemetry to connect both libraries. Usage In a nutshell, you register a custom module and function to be invoked for certain events, which…
read the full telemetry overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or telemetry more popular?
NetData has 81,255 GitHub stars and telemetry has 923. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and telemetry free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and telemetry under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and telemetry?
NetData is written in Go and telemetry in Erlang. 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 telemetry?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (81,255 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose telemetry if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.