MENU: **[WHO WE ARE](#who-we-are)** | **[KEY FEATURES](#key-features)** | **[GETTING STARTED](#getting-started)** | **[HOW IT WORKS](#how-it-works)** | **[FAQ](#faq)** | **[DOCS](#book-documentation)** | **[COMMUNITY](#tada-community)** | **[CONTRIBUTE](#pray-contribute)** | **[LICENSE](#scroll-license)**
> [!WARNING]
> People **get addicted to Netdata.**
> Once you use it on your systems, *there's no going back.*
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---
## 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.
All heroes have a great origin story. Click to discover ours.
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](https://www.ivanomalavolta.com/files/papers/ICSOC_2023.pdf), 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
| Feature | Description | What Makes It Unique |
|----------------------------|-------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| **Real-Time** | Per-second data collection and processing | Works in a beat – click and see results instantly |
| **Zero-Configuration** | Automatic detection and discovery | Auto-discovers everything on the nodes it runs |
| **ML-Powered** | Unsupervised anomaly detection | Trains multiple ML models per metric at the edge |
| **Long-Term Retention** | High-performance storage | ~0.5 bytes per sample with tiered storage for archiving |
| **Advanced Visualization** | Rich, interactive dashboards | Slice and dice data without query language |
| **Extreme Scalability** | Native horizontal scaling | Parent-Child centralization with multi-million samples/s |
| **Complete Visibility** | From infrastructure to applications | Simplifies operations and eliminates silos |
| **Edge-Based** | Processing at your premises | Distributes code instead of centralizing data |
> [!NOTE]
> Want to put Netdata to the test against Prometheus?
> Explore the [full comparison](https://www.netdata.cloud/blog/netdata-vs-prometheus-2025/).
---
## Netdata Ecosystem
This three-part architecture enables you to scale from single nodes to complex multi-cloud environments:
| Component | Description | License |
|-------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|
| **Netdata Agent** | • Core monitoring engine • Handles collection, storage, ML, alerts, exports • Runs on servers, cloud, K8s, IoT • Zero production impact | [GPL v3+](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0) |
| **Netdata Cloud** | • Enterprise features • User management, RBAC, horizontal scaling • Centralized alerts • Free community tier • No metric storage centralization | |
| **Netdata UI** | • Dashboards and visualizations • Free to use • Included in standard packages • Latest version via CDN | [NCUL1](https://app.netdata.cloud/LICENSE.txt) |
## What You Can Monitor
With Netdata you can monitor all these components across platforms:
| Component | Linux | FreeBSD | macOS | Windows |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:|:--------------------------------:|:-------:|:-----:|:-------------------------------------------------:|
| **System Resources** CPU, Memory and system shared resources | Full | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Storage** Disks, Mount points, Filesystems, RAID arrays | Full | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Network** Network Interfaces, Protocols, Firewall, etc | Full | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Hardware & Sensors** Fans, Temperatures, Controllers, GPUs, etc | Full | Some | Some | Some |
| **O/S Services** Resources, Performance and Status | Yes `systemd` | - | - | - |
| **Processes** Resources, Performance, OOM, and more | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| System and Application **Logs** | Yes `systemd`-journal | - | - | Yes `Windows Event Log`, `ETW` |
| **Network Connections** Live TCP and UDP sockets per PID | Yes | - | - | - |
| **Containers** Docker/containerd, LXC/LXD, Kubernetes, etc | Yes | - | - | - |
| **VMs** (from the host) KVM, qemu, libvirt, Proxmox, etc | Yes `cgroups` | - | - | Yes `Hyper-V` |
| **Synthetic Checks** Test APIs, TCP ports, Ping, Certificates, etc | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Packaged Applications** nginx, apache, postgres, redis, mongodb, and hundreds more | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Cloud Provider Infrastructure** AWS, GCP, Azure, and more | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| **Custom Applications** OpenMetrics, StatsD and soon OpenTelemetry | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installing/one-line-installer-for-all-linux-systems)
* [macOS](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installing/macos)
* [FreeBSD](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installing/freebsd)
* [Windows](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/netdata-agent/installation/windows)
* [Docker Guide](/packaging/docker/README.md)
* [Kubernetes Setup](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installation/install-on-specific-environments/kubernetes)
> [!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](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/data-collection/)
* [SNMP monitoring](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/data-collection/monitor-anything/networking/snmp)
### 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](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/streaming/streaming-configuration-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](https://app.netdata.cloud/sign-in) 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
See Netdata in action FRANKFURT |
NEWYORK |
ATLANTA |
SANFRANCISCO |
TORONTO |
SINGAPORE |
BANGALORE These demo clusters run with default configuration and show real monitoring data. Choose the instance closest to you for the best performance.
---
## How It Works
With Netdata you can run a modular pipeline for metrics collection, processing, and visualization.
```mermaid
flowchart TB
A[Netdata Agent]:::mainNode
A1(Collect):::green --> A
A2(Store):::green --> A
A3(Learn):::green --> A
A4(Detect):::green --> A
A5(Check):::green --> A
A6(Stream):::green --> A
A7(Archive):::green --> A
A8(Query):::green --> A
A9(Score):::green --> A
classDef green fill:#bbf3bb,stroke:#333,stroke-width:1px,color:#000
classDef mainNode fill:#f0f0f0,stroke:#333,stroke-width:1px,color:#333
```
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](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/netdata-agent/#distributed-observability-pipeline)
## Agent Capabilities
With the Netdata Agent, you can use these core capabilities out-of-the-box:
| Capability | Description |
|------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| **Comprehensive Collection** | • 800+ integrations • Systems, containers, VMs, hardware sensors • OpenMetrics, StatsD, and logs • OpenTelemetry support coming soon |
| **Performance & Precision** | • Per-second collection • Real-time visualization with 1-second latency • High-resolution metrics |
| **Edge-Based ML** | • ML models trained at the edge • Automatic anomaly detection per metric • Pattern recognition based on historical behavior |
| **Advanced Log Management** | • Direct systemd-journald and Windows Event Log integration • Process logs at the edge • Rich log visualization |
| **Observability Pipeline** | • Parent-Child relationships • Flexible centralization • Multi-level replication and retention |
| **Automated Visualization** | • NIDL data model • Auto-generated dashboards • No query language needed |
| **Smart Alerting** | • Pre-configured alerts • Multiple notification methods • Proactive detection |
| **Low Maintenance** | • Auto-detection • Zero-touch ML • Easy scalability • CI/CD friendly |
| **Open & Extensible** | • Modular architecture • Easy to customize • Integrates with existing tools |
---
## CNCF Membership
Netdata actively supports and is a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
It is one of the most starred projects in the CNCF landscape.
---
## FAQ
Is Netdata secure?
Yes. Netdata follows [OpenSSF best practices](https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/en/projects/2231), has a security-first design, and is regularly audited by the community.
* [Security design](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/security-and-privacy-design)
* [Security policies and advisories](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/security)
Does Netdata use a lot of resources?
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.
How much data retention is possible?
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.
Can Netdata scale to many servers?
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.
Is disk I/O a concern?
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.
How is Netdata different from Prometheus + Grafana?
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](https://blog.netdata.cloud/netdata-vs-prometheus-performance-analysis/)
How is Netdata different from commercial SaaS tools?
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
Can Netdata run alongside Nagios, Zabbix, etc.?
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
What if I feel overwhelmed?
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](https://learn.netdata.cloud/guides)
Do I have to use Netdata Cloud?
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
What telemetry does Netdata collect?
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.
Who uses Netdata?
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](https://learn.netdata.cloud) for full documentation and guides.
> [!NOTE]
> Includes deployment, configuration, alerting, exporting, troubleshooting, and more.
---
## \:tada: Community
Join the Netdata community:
* [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/2mEmfW735j)
* [Forum](https://community.netdata.cloud)
* [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/discussions)
> [!NOTE]
> [Code of Conduct](https://github.com/netdata/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)
Follow us on:
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/netdatahq) | [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/netdata/) | [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/c/Netdata) | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/netdata-cloud/)
---
## \: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](https://github.com/netdata/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)
---
## \: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](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/LICENSE)
* [Netdata Agent Redistributed](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/REDISTRIBUTED.md)
* **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](https://app.netdata.cloud/LICENSE.txt)
* [Netdata UI third-party licenses](https://app.netdata.cloud/3D_PARTY_LICENSES.txt)
* **Netdata Cloud** – Closed-source, with free and paid tiers. Adds remote access, SSO, scalability.
