We may earn a commission if you buy through links on this page. It never changes a score or a ranking. How we make money
It's a split decision.
Choose Netdata for agent-based infrastructure monitoring, metrics without free-tier caps, and an explicit on-premises option. Choose Grafana for combining telemetry through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus and a broad plugin ecosystem. Netdata Community is free for five nodes; Grafana Cloud Free has series and data-volume limits. Grafana Pro adds a $19 monthly platform fee and usage charges, while Netdata's Homelab plan costs $90 per year for personal, non-commercial use.
01Side by side
| Netdata | Grafana | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free tier; $90/year Homelab; custom enterprise pricing | Free; $19/month Pro fee plus usage |
| Free tier | Five nodes; no metric caps; retention you control | 14-day retention; 10k active series; 50 GB/month |
| Open source and licence | Open source; check licence before redistribution | Open source; check licence before redistribution |
| Integrations | 800+ collectors and channels, including Slack and PagerDuty | OpenTelemetry, Prometheus and hundreds of plugins |
| Deployment model | Agents, Parent nodes, Cloud SaaS or on-premises Cloud | Grafana Cloud; Enterprise lists public, federal or BYOC |
| Platforms | Web, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Kubernetes and Docker | Web |
| Limits and scaling | Free tier caps nodes, not metrics; unlimited agent streaming | Usage limits vary by telemetry and product |
| Lock-in and data export | Metrics stay on nodes; on-premises option | OpenTelemetry and Prometheus; existing tools can connect |
Netdata Choose Netdata if
- Choose Netdata if you want infrastructure monitoring built around agents and Parent nodes.
- Choose Netdata if five free nodes and uncapped metrics fit your setup.
- Choose Netdata if on-premises or air-gapped deployment is a requirement.
Grafana Choose Grafana if
- Choose Grafana if your stack already uses OpenTelemetry or Prometheus.
- Choose Grafana if you need a broad plugin and integration ecosystem.
- Choose Grafana if you want telemetry billing tied to product usage.
02Pricing at real usage
Netdata Community is free forever for five nodes, with no metric caps and retention you control. Its Homelab plan is $90 per year for personal, non-commercial use; Enterprise pricing is custom. Grafana Cloud Free costs $0 and includes 14-day retention for metrics, logs, traces and profiles, 10,000 active metric series per month, and 50 GB/month for logs, traces and profiles. Grafana Pro starts with a $19 monthly platform fee, then pay-as-you-go charges above included usage. The bill depends on telemetry and product: listed rates include Metrics from $6.50 per 1,000 series, Logs at $0.050/GB processed, and Kubernetes Monitoring at $0.01/host hour. Enterprise requires a $25,000 annual spend commit. For a small node-based setup, Netdata's metric allowance is simpler to predict; for Grafana, model ingestion, retention and product-specific use before rollout.
03API, SDKs and integration
Netdata is an agent-based system: agents collect telemetry and can stream it to Parent nodes for centralized monitoring; its homepage says metrics stay on your infrastructure while views stream to cloud. It lists 800+ auto-discovered collectors and notification channels, including Slack, PagerDuty, Teams, email and webhooks. Grafana Cloud connects existing tools through open standards including OpenTelemetry and Prometheus, plus hundreds of plugins and integrations. That gives Grafana a documented route for teams already instrumenting with those standards; Netdata emphasizes collectors, agents and centralized Parents. Neither homepage identifies API schemas, SDK languages, CLI commands or a specific developer documentation set. Check the product docs for supported endpoints, authentication, client libraries and automation workflows before choosing either as a programmatic dependency; do not assume dashboard integrations imply a stable public API.
04Open source, self-hosting and lock-in
Both products are identified as open source, but their product pages do not name licence terms; confirm the applicable licence and commercial-use conditions before embedding or redistributing either. Netdata explicitly supports self-hosting: agents can send data to Parent nodes, and the vendor offers Netdata Cloud on-premises, including air-gapped deployment. Its homepage says metrics stay on your nodes. Grafana's page centers Grafana Cloud; its Enterprise offer lists Public Cloud, Federal Cloud or Bring Your Own Cloud deployment, not a clearly specified self-managed package. Grafana's use of OpenTelemetry and Prometheus and its plug-in ecosystem can reduce dependence on a single ingestion path. Neither product page describes data export formats or migration tooling. Ask about raw telemetry export, dashboard portability, retention after cancellation and configuration-as-code before committing.
Questions people ask
Can Netdata replace Grafana?
It can fit infrastructure monitoring where agent-collected metrics, logs and traces are the main need. Grafana is a better fit when you want to connect existing telemetry through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus and plugins. Compare required data sources and dashboards before replacing either tool.
Which is cheaper for a small setup?
Netdata Community is free for five nodes, with no metric caps. Grafana Cloud Free is also free, but includes limits on active metric series, telemetry volume and retention. Grafana Pro starts at $19 per month plus usage; Netdata Homelab is $90 per year for personal, non-commercial use.
Can I run Netdata on-premises?
Yes. Netdata offers self-hosted agents and Parent nodes, and its Netdata Cloud on-premises option supports air-gapped deployment. The homepage says metrics stay on your nodes. Check deployment requirements and support arrangements with the vendor for your environment.
Does Grafana support OpenTelemetry and Prometheus?
Yes. Grafana Cloud connects existing tools and data sources using OpenTelemetry and Prometheus, and the vendor lists hundreds of plugins and integrations. That makes it a fit for stacks already using those standards; confirm the specific integration and telemetry costs for your planned workload.