Netdata

Netdata consists of a daemon that, when executed, is responsible for collecting and displaying information in real-time.

It is a lightweight tool, mostly written in C, Python, and JavaScript, which uses minimal resources. As a general rule, for modern hardware and VMs, the total CPU consumption of a standalone Netdata installation, including all its components, should be below 5 - 15% of a single core[8]. It also scales nicely from just a single server to thousands of servers and given enough disk space, it can keep metrics for years.[9]

It can be run in 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.

Netdata can be run on virtually anything utilizing a Linux kernel and its graphics can be embedded into web pages. It provides a powerful dashboard that can provide both a single node view or an infrastructure view. The dashboard groups similar charts together so, all disk drives, network interfaces, cgroups (containers and VMs), are in a single set of charts. It also can present multi-node and multi-instance charts where with the NIDL[10] framework where you can filter, slice, and dice the data.

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.[11]

Additional features:[12]

• Collects metrics from 800+ integrations

Netdata collects metrics from various sources, including operating systems, containers, virtual machines, hardware sensors, and more.

• Real-Time, Low-Latency, High-Resolution

Metrics are collected per second and displayed instantly on intuitive dashboards.

• Unsupervised Anomaly Detection

Utilizes machine learning to detect anomalies in given metrics, enabling proactive issue resolution.

• Powerful Visualization

Users can easily understand and analyze their data with clear visualizations without using complex query languages.

• Out of box Alerts

Comes with hundreds of alerts out of the box that  help you identify and address common issues promptly.

• systemd Journal Logs Explorer

Provides a systemd journal logs explorer, to view, filter and analyze system and applications logs by directly accessing systemd journal files on individual hosts and infrastructure-wide logs centralization servers.

• Low Maintenance

Fully automated with auto-detection, scalability, and high availability. It's CI/CD friendly.

• Open and Extensible

Netdata is modular and can be extended to integrate with other monitoring solutions.

Netdata can be installed on all Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD systems. Users can find binary packages for the most popular operating systems and package managers.

Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, Arch, Alpine, Docker, MacOS, FreeBSD, from source and Kubernetes.

Netdata is a Verified Publisher on DockerHub and its’ users enjoy free unlimited DockerHub pulls[13].

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.[14][15] It provides a REST API so that the browser can access the information.

How to Get Started[16]:

Install Netdata Everywhere: Netdata supports Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. Install it using various package managers or Docker.

• Configure Collectors: Netdata auto-detects most data sources but may require manual configuration for some.

• Configure Alert Notifications: Customize alerts and notifications to suit your needs. Netdata supports various third-party systems.

• Configure Netdata Parents: Optionally, set up Netdata Parents for centralized dashboards, increased retention, and central alert configuration.

• Connect to Netdata Cloud: Join Netdata Cloud to organize your infrastructure, create custom dashboards, and more.

Netdata is currently maintained by nearly 400 contributors,[17] all helping (at various levels) to serve the thousands of individual users and businesses[18] 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.[19] The second most-active user is Ilya Mashchenko.[20]

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).[21]

The all-time most popular feature request appears to be adding support for running multiple freeipmi jobs from the same Netdata.[22]

• Comparison of dashboard software
• Comparison of network monitoring systems

• netdata on GitHub