 | |
| Initial release | 24 October 2013 [1] |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.43.0 / 17 October 2023 [2] |
| Repository | https://github.com/netdata/netdata |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Linux, FreeBSD, and MacOS. |
| License | GNU General Public License version 3 |
| Website | https://www.netdata.cloud/ |
Netdata is an open source [3] [4] tool designed to collect real-time metrics, such as CPU usage, disk activity, bandwidth usage, website visits, etc., and then display them in live, easy-to-interpret charts.
Netdata consists of a daemon that, when executed, is responsible for collecting and displaying information in real-time.
It is mostly written in C, Python and JavaScript, and aims to use minimal system resources.
It can be run on any Linux system to monitor any system or application, and is capable of running on PCs, servers, and embedded Linux devices.
Netdata is designed to be installed on a system without interrupting any of the applications running on it. It operates according to the memory requirements specified by the user, using only idle CPU cycles. Once the application begins, it will not perform disk I/O beyond logging. The tool saves to disk at the end of its execution and reloads at startup.
By default it contains certain plugins that collect key system metrics, but its behavior is extensible by using its plugin API.
Graphics generated by Netdata can be embedded into web pages. It has an interface with customizable themes and can be manually configured by the user with HTML.
There are no dependencies, as it operates as its own web server, with static web files.
Starting with v1.12, Netdata collects anonymous usage information by default and sends it to Google Analytics, a feature which can be disabled via manual configuration. [5]
When executing the daemon on Linux using the netdata command, threads are generated that collect information from each resource, using internal and/or external plugins. In turn, it keeps a record of the values collected in memory (without doing any Disk I/O).
It operates as a stand-alone web server for its own static files, necessary for the representation of its dashboards. [6] [7] It provides a REST API so that the browser can access the information.
Each installation of the application works autonomously. Although different running instances of the application can be saved to one dashboard, every Netdata instance is independent. Only the browser can connect all installations of different systems, unifying graphics from different sources as if they came from the same server.
Netdata is currently maintained by nearly 400 contributors, [8] all helping (at various levels) to serve the thousands of individual users and businesses [9] who utilize this tool.
The user with the most contributions is currently Costa Tsaousis, the CEO and Founder of Netdata, with over 600,000 additions to the code. [10] The second most-active user is Ilya Mashchenko. [11]
The all-time most popular addition to Netdata appears to be adding support for data collection from Vnstat, a pull request by Noah Troy with nearly 200 individual comments (more than any other pull request). [12]
The all-time most popular feature request appears to be adding support for running multiple freeipmi jobs from the same Netdata. [13]
Cacti is an open-source, web-based network monitoring, performance, fault and configuration management framework designed as a front-end application for the open-source, industry-standard data logging tool RRDtool. Cacti allows a user to poll services at predetermined intervals and graph the resulting data. Through the use of Cacti plugins, it has been extended to encompass all of the FCAPS operational management categories. It is generally used to graph time-series data of metrics such as CPU load and network bandwidth utilization. A common usage is to monitor network traffic by polling a network switch or router interface via Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
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nmon is a computer performance system monitor tool for the AIX and Linux operating systems. The nmon tool has two modes a) displays the performance stats on-screen in a condensed format or b) the same stats are saved to a comma-separated values (CSV) data file for later graphing and analysis to aid the understanding of computer resource use, tuning options and bottlenecks.
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of notable network monitoring systems. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.
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collectd is a Unix daemon that collects, transfers and stores performance data of computers and network equipment. The acquired data is meant to help system administrators maintain an overview over available resources to detect existing or looming bottlenecks.
Shinken is an open source computer system and network monitoring software application compatible with Nagios. It watches hosts and services, gathers performance data and alerts users when error conditions occur and again when the conditions clear.
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Checkmk is a software system developed in Python and C++ for IT Infrastructure monitoring. It is used for the monitoring of servers, applications, networks, cloud infrastructures, containers, storage, databases and environment sensors.
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Jellyfin is a free and open-source media server and suite of multimedia applications designed to organize, manage, and share digital media files to networked devices. Jellyfin consists of a server application installed on a machine running Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux or in a Docker container, and another application running on a client device such as a smartphone, tablet, smart TV, streaming media player, game console or in a web browser. Jellyfin also can serve media to DLNA and Chromecast-enabled devices. It is a fork of Emby.
netdata is free, open-source software.