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X-Ray Vision for your infrastructure!
Every Metric, Every Second. No BS.
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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.* []() --- ## 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.
• 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.
• 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.
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