head to head · open source
NetData vs thanos
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. thanos has 14,207 stars, 2,369 forks, 908 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 467% (80,561 vs 14,207 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; thanos is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, thanos 17%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cncf), 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.
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Side by side
| NetData | thanos | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 14K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| 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 thanos if
- You want the thanos 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 thanos 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 thanos
Thanos is a CNCF Incubating, Apache 2.0 licensed collection of Go components that composes a highly available metric system with unlimited storage capacity on top of an existing Prometheus deployment.
read the full thanos overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or thanos more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and thanos has 14,207. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and thanos free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and thanos under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and thanos?
NetData is written in Go and thanos 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 thanos?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose thanos if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.