head to head · open source
NetData vs pinpoint
NetData has 80,598 GitHub stars, 6,631 forks, 393 open issues and last shipped today. pinpoint has 13,872 stars, 3,749 forks, 543 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NetData leads on adoption by 481% (80,598 vs 13,872 stars). NetData is written in Go under GPL-3.0; pinpoint is written in Java under Apache-2.0. NetData has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pinpoint 27%. 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 | pinpoint | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 81K | ★ 14K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 3.7K |
| 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 pinpoint if
- You want the pinpoint feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and pinpoint 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 pinpoint
Pinpoint is an open source Application Performance Management (APM) tool built for large scale distributed systems. It is written primarily in Java and also supports applications written in PHP and Python through a separate agent repository. Inspired by Google's Dapper, it provides a way to analyze the overall structure of a system and how the components inside it are interconnected by tracing transactions across distributed applications. The project lives in the Java ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and has been developed for around twelve years, with its current stable release being v3.1.0.…
read the full pinpoint overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is NetData or pinpoint more popular?
NetData has 80,598 GitHub stars and pinpoint has 13,872. NetData has the larger community by that measure.
Are NetData and pinpoint free?
Both are open source. NetData is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pinpoint under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between NetData and pinpoint?
NetData is written in Go and pinpoint in Java. 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 pinpoint?
Choose NetData if you want the larger community (80,598 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pinpoint if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.