head to head · open source
NetData vs witr
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped yesterday. witr has 22,374 stars, 781 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. NetData leads on adoption by 260% (80,561 vs 22,374 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; witr is written in Go under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, witr 3%. NetData was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (devops, docker, kubernetes, linux), 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 | witr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 22K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 781 |
| 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 witr if
- You want the witr 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 witr 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 witr
witr is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed Go tool with both a command line interface and an interactive terminal UI that traces any process, port, container, or file back to the exact chain of systems that started it, and it is built for operators, SREs, and developers who need to answer "why is this running?" during debugging and incident response.
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or witr more popular?
NetData has 80,561 GitHub stars and witr has 22,374. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and witr free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and witr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and witr?
NetData is written in Go and witr 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 witr?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,561 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose witr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.