Netdata

What is Netdata about?

Netdata provides a full‑stack observability platform that automatically discovers metrics across servers, containers, applications, and cloud services. It captures every metric every second, stores them efficiently, and visualizes them through interactive dashboards, all while keeping the data local unless you opt for Cloud integration.

How to use Netdata?

1. Install the Agent – run the one‑line installer for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Windows, Docker, or Kubernetes (see the official install guides linked in the README).
2. Access the UI – open http://localhost:19999 (or http://<node>:19999 for remote nodes) to explore the auto‑generated dashboards.
3. Configure collectors (optional) – fine‑tune or add custom collectors via the netdata.conf files or the web UI.
4. Set up alerts – enable built‑in alerts and route notifications to email, Slack, Telegram, PagerDuty, Discord, Teams, etc.
5. Connect to Netdata Cloud (optional) – link agents to Netdata Cloud for centralized dashboards, role‑based access, and multi‑node views.

Key Features of Netdata

• Real‑time per‑second metrics with sub‑second latency.
• Zero‑configuration auto‑discovery of services, containers, hardware sensors, and cloud resources.
• Edge‑based ML for unsupervised anomaly detection per metric.
• Efficient storage (~0.5 bytes/sample) with tiered retention and optional RAM‑only mode.
• Built‑in visualizations – auto‑generated dashboards, no query language required.
• Scalable architecture – parent‑child streaming, horizontal scaling to millions of samples/second, optional Netdata Cloud.
• Extensive integrations – 800+ collectors, support for OpenMetrics, StatsD, SNMP, and upcoming OpenTelemetry.
• Low resource footprint – typical <5 % CPU and ~150 MiB RAM.
• Secure & distributed – data stays on‑premises unless you enable Cloud; follows OpenSSF best practices.

Use Cases of Netdata

• Infrastructure health monitoring – instantly spot CPU spikes, memory pressure, disk I/O issues across thousands of servers.
• Container & Kubernetes observability – track pod‑level metrics, Docker/containerd stats, and Kubernetes node health.
• Anomaly detection for DevOps – ML models flag out‑of‑norm behavior before incidents impact users.
• Hybrid/multi‑cloud visibility – unify metrics from AWS, GCP, Azure, on‑prem, and edge devices.
• Performance troubleshooting – drill down to per‑process metrics, system calls, and hardware sensor data.
• Compliance & capacity planning – long‑term retention and correlation across time help with audits and forecasting.

FAQ from Netdata

• Is Netdata secure? Yes. It follows OpenSSF best practices, undergoes regular audits, and stores data locally by default.
• Does it consume a lot of resources? No. Typical usage is ~5 % CPU and 150 MiB RAM; can be reduced further by disabling ML or using RAM‑only mode.
• How much data can be retained? Retention is limited only by disk capacity; tiered storage provides per‑second, per‑minute, and per‑hour resolutions automatically.
• Can Netdata scale to millions of servers? Yes. Agents can stream to parent nodes or Netdata Cloud, supporting horizontal scaling to any size.
• Do I have to use Netdata Cloud? No. Cloud is optional; agents work fully standalone with local dashboards and alerts.
• How does Netdata differ from Prometheus + Grafana? Netdata bundles collection, storage, ML, alerts, and dashboards in a single package, requiring zero manual configuration.
• Can Netdata coexist with Nagios/Zabbix? Absolutely. You can run Netdata alongside traditional tools and forward alerts as needed.
• What telemetry is collected? Only anonymous usage statistics that can be disabled via installer flag or by creating /etc/netdata/.opt-out-from-anonymous-statistics.

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 – You can detect anomalies, predict issues, and automate analysis.
• Efficient – You can monitor with minimal resource usage and maximum scalability.
• Secure & Distributed – You can keep your data local with no central collection needed.

With Netdata, you get real-time, per-second updates. Clear insights at a glance, no complexity.

In 2013, at the company where Costa Tsaousis was COO, a significant percentage of their cloud-based transactions failed silently, severely impacting business performance.

Costa and his team tried every troubleshooting tool available at the time. None could identify the root cause. As Costa later wrote:

“I couldn’t believe that monitoring systems provide so few metrics and with such low resolution, scale so badly, and cost so much to run.”

Frustrated, he decided to build his own monitoring tool, starting from scratch.

That decision led to countless late nights and weekends. It also sparked a fundamental shift in how infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting are approached, both in method and in cost.

Most Energy-Efficient Monitoring Tool

According to the University of Amsterdam study, Netdata is the most energy-efficient tool for monitoring Docker-based systems. The study also shows Netdata excels in CPU usage, RAM usage, and execution time compared to other monitoring solutions.

Key Features

[!NOTE]
Want to put Netdata to the test against Prometheus? Explore the full comparison.

Netdata Ecosystem

This three-part architecture enables you to scale from single nodes to complex multi-cloud environments:

What You Can Monitor

With Netdata you can monitor all these components across platforms:

On Linux, you can continuously monitor all kernel features and hardware sensors for errors, including Intel/AMD/Nvidia GPUs, PCI AER, RAM EDAC, IPMI, S.M.A.R.T, Intel RAPL, NVMe, fans, power supplies, and voltage readings.

Getting Started

You can install Netdata on all major operating systems. To begin:

1. Install Netdata

Choose your platform and follow the installation guide:

• Linux Installation
• macOS
• FreeBSD
• Windows
• Docker Guide
• Kubernetes Setup

[!NOTE] You can access the Netdata UI at http://localhost:19999 (or http://NODE:19999 if remote).

2. Configure Collectors

Netdata auto-discovers most metrics, but you can manually configure some collectors:

• All collectors
• SNMP monitoring

3. Configure Alerts

You can use hundreds of built-in alerts and integrate with:

email, Slack, Telegram, PagerDuty, Discord, Microsoft Teams, and more.

[!NOTE]
Email alerts work by default if there's a configured MTA.

4. Configure Parents

You can centralize dashboards, alerts, and storage with Netdata Parents:

• Streaming Reference

[!NOTE]
You can use Netdata Parents for central dashboards, longer retention, and alert configuration.

5. Connect to Netdata Cloud

Sign in to Netdata Cloud and connect your nodes for:

• Access from anywhere
• Horizontal scalability and multi-node dashboards
• UI configuration for alerts and data collection
• Role-based access control
• Free tier available

[!NOTE]
Netdata Cloud is optional. Your data stays in your infrastructure.

Live Demo Sites

How It Works

With Netdata you can run a modular pipeline for metrics collection, processing, and visualization.

With each Agent you can:

1. Collect – Gather metrics from systems, containers, apps, logs, APIs, and synthetic checks.
2. Store – Save metrics to a high-efficiency, tiered time-series database.
3. Learn – Train ML models per metric using recent behavior.
4. Detect – Identify anomalies using trained ML models.
5. Check – Evaluate metrics against pre-set or custom alert rules.
6. Stream – Send metrics to Netdata Parents in real time.
7. Archive – Export metrics to Prometheus, InfluxDB, OpenTSDB, Graphite, and others.
8. Query – Access metrics via an API for dashboards or third-party tools.
9. Score – Use a scoring engine to find patterns and correlations across metrics.

[!NOTE]
Learn more: Netdata's architecture

Agent Capabilities

With the Netdata Agent, you can use these core capabilities out-of-the-box:

CNCF Membership

FAQ

Yes. Netdata follows OpenSSF best practices, has a security-first design, and is regularly audited by the community.

• Security design
• Security policies and advisories

No. Even with ML and per-second metrics, Netdata uses minimal resources.

• ~5% CPU and 150MiB RAM by default on production systems
• <1% CPU and ~100MiB RAM when ML and alerts are disabled and using ephemeral storage
• Parents scale to millions of metrics per second with appropriate hardware

You can use the Netdata Monitoring section in the dashboard to inspect its resource usage.

As much as your disk allows.

With Netdata you can use tiered retention:

• Tier 0: per-second resolution
• Tier 1: per-minute resolution
• Tier 2: per-hour resolution

These are queried automatically based on the zoom level.

Yes. With Netdata you can:

• Scale horizontally with many Agents
• Scale vertically with powerful Parents
• Scale infinitely via Netdata Cloud

You can use Netdata Cloud to merge many independent infrastructures into one logical view.

No. Netdata minimizes disk usage:

• Metrics are flushed to disk every 17 minutes, spread out evenly
• Uses direct I/O and compression (ZSTD)
• Can run entirely in RAM or stream to a Parent

You can use alloc or ram mode for no disk writes.

With Netdata you get a complete monitoring solution—not just tools.

• No manual setup or dashboards needed
• Built-in ML, alerts, dashboards, and correlations
• More efficient and easier to deploy

Performance comparison

With Netdata you can store all metrics on your infrastructure—no sampling, no aggregation, no loss.

• High-resolution metrics by default
• ML per metric, not shared models
• Unlimited scalability without skyrocketing cost

Yes. You can use Netdata together with traditional tools.

With Netdata you get:

• Real-time, high-resolution monitoring
• Zero configuration and auto-generated dashboards
• Anomaly detection and advanced visualization

You can start small:

• Use the dashboard's table of contents and search
• Explore anomaly scoring ("AR" toggle)
• Create custom dashboards in Netdata Cloud

Docs and guides

No. Netdata Cloud is optional.

Netdata works without it, but with Cloud you can:

• Access remotely with SSO
• Save dashboard customizations
• Configure alerts centrally
• Collaborate with role-based access

Anonymous telemetry helps improve the product. You can disable it:

• Add --disable-telemetry to the installer, or
• Create /etc/netdata/.opt-out-from-anonymous-statistics and restart Netdata

Telemetry helps us understand usage, not track users. No private data is collected.

You'll join users including:

• Major companies (Amazon, ABN AMRO Bank, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Netflix, Samsung)
• Universities (NYU, Columbia, Seoul National, UCL)
• Government organizations worldwide
• Infrastructure-intensive organizations
• Technology operators
• Startups and freelancers
• SysAdmins and DevOps professionals

:book: Documentation

Visit Netdata Learn for full documentation and guides.

[!NOTE]
Includes deployment, configuration, alerting, exporting, troubleshooting, and more.

:tada: Community

Join the Netdata community:

• Discord
• Forum
• GitHub Discussions

[!NOTE]
Code of Conduct

Follow us on: Twitter | Reddit | YouTube | LinkedIn

:pray: Contribute

We welcome your contributions.

Ways you help us stay sharp:

• Share best practices and monitoring insights
• Report issues or missing features
• Improve documentation
• Develop new integrations or collectors
• Help users in forums and chats

[!NOTE]
Contribution guide

:scroll: License

The Netdata ecosystem includes:

• Netdata Agent – Open-source core (GPLv3+). Includes data collection, storage, ML, alerting, APIs and redistributes several other open-source tools and libraries.
  • Netdata Agent License
  • Netdata Agent Redistributed
• Netdata UI – Closed-source but free to use with Netdata Agent and Cloud. Delivered via CDN. It integrates third-party open-source components.
  • Netdata Cloud UI License
  • Netdata UI third-party licenses
• Netdata Cloud – Closed-source, with free and paid tiers. Adds remote access, SSO, scalability.