Netdata

Details

The Netdata project has three main components:

• Netdata Agent - The core monitoring engine which provides collection, storage, alerts, exports etc…
  • This is provided under a GPLv3 FOSS license.
• Netdata UI - A user interface with dashboards and visualizations.
  • This is provided under a closed-source proprietary license.
• Netdata Cloud - A hosted offering providing extra features upon the other components.

When following the Linux installation process, linked to from the readme install guidance of their GPLv3 repository, which entailed using their installer script, the Netdata UI was also installed and made available, without any UI-specific option or license information shown until accessing the web UI.

The netdata package was removed from official Debian repositories, with reasoning mentioning the UI licensing and the move of functionality to Netdata Cloud.

The project generally refers to itself as Open Source in many prominent areas of the project, with some examples being:

“Netdata is an open-source, real-time infrastructure monitoring platform.” […] (ref - Project Readme)

“The World’s Most Popular Open Source Monitoring Platform” (ref - Their dedicated “Open Source” page)

“No lock-in by design. Open standards, open source, bring-your-own-LLM. Your future stays open.” (ref - Their “Values” page)

“Edge-Native, AI-Ready, 100% Open”, “76k+ stars. Full ML, AI, and automation—GPLv3+, not premium add-ons.” […] “GPLv3+ licensed forever” (Seen on the “Company > Open Source” tab of their header menu)

Often these mentions are alongside screenshots and feature marketing of the UI or Cloud elements, without clear indication that only the core agent element is open source. On their open source page the FAQ item which directly questions if the project is open source is, at best, potentially misleading:

Is Netdata really free and open source? Yes. The Netdata Agent is licensed under GPLv3+ and free forever for unlimited nodes. The dashboard is licensed under NCUL1 (Netdata Cloud UI License), which is free to use with Netdata Agents and Parents. You can deploy, modify, and distribute Netdata without restrictions. Netdata Cloud (SaaS) offers additional features with a free Community tier (5 nodes, personal use only) and paid plans for larger deployments and commercial use.

The default installation of Netdata comes with various functionality which relies on the Cloud offering. When users have tried to work around these elements, Netdata have responded stating:

The functionality in question is part of the Netdata Cloud / Enterprise UI, which is covered by the Netdata Cloud UI license […] That license doesn’t allow bypassing or disabling licensing or access controls, so we can’t support or recommend doing that.

The project appears to have raised at least $31m in funding from investors which include Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures and Uncorrelated Ventures. The project appears to gain revenue from selling hosted and self-hostable paid offerings & services.