head to head · open source
NetData vs Vector
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Vector has 22,579 stars, 2,286 forks, 2,512 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 257% (80,561 vs 22,579 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; Vector is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Vector 10%. Vector 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 | Vector | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 23K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 Vector if
- You want the Vector feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Vector 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 Vector
Vector is an open source observability data pipeline written in Rust and licensed under MPL 2.0. It operates as an end to end system for collecting, transforming, and routing logs and metrics within the cloud native monitoring ecosystem. The project is maintained by Datadog's Community Open Source Engineering team, and its topics include agent, cloud native, data transformation, datadog, etl, events, forwarder, logs, metrics, and monitoring.
read the full Vector overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or Vector more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and Vector has 22,579. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and Vector free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Vector under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and Vector?
NetData is written in Go and Vector 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 Vector?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Vector if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.