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Netdata

Netdata is a real-time, distributed monitoring and troubleshooting platform designed to provide instant visibility into system and application performance. It collects thousands of metrics per second with minimal overhead, offering high-resolution insights into infrastructure health without requiring complex configuration or dedicated storage backends.

Netdata is built for modern infrastructure monitoring, providing per-second granularity for all metrics, automated anomaly detection, and a powerful visualization interface that enables rapid troubleshooting and root cause analysis across distributed systems.

Key Benefits of Netdata​

  • Real-time Monitoring: Collects and visualizes metrics with per-second granularity, providing immediate visibility into system behavior and performance changes.
  • Zero Configuration: Automatically detects and monitors hundreds of applications and system components out of the box without manual configuration.
  • Low Overhead: Highly optimized data collection with minimal CPU and memory footprint (typically < 2% CPU and < 100MB RAM per node).
  • Distributed Architecture: Supports both standalone and parent-child configurations for scalable monitoring across large infrastructures.
  • ML-Powered Anomaly Detection: Built-in machine learning algorithms automatically detect anomalies and unusual patterns without manual threshold configuration.
  • Comprehensive Coverage: Monitors system resources, containers, VMs, applications, databases, web servers, and custom metrics through a unified interface.
  • Cloud Native Ready: Native support for Kubernetes, Docker, and containerized environments with automatic service discovery.
  • Open Source: Fully open source with an active community and no licensing costs for core functionality.

Architecture and Components​

Core Components​

Netdata's architecture consists of several key components that work together to provide comprehensive monitoring:

Netdata Agent​

The primary data collection component that runs on each monitored node:

  • Collectors: Modular plugins that gather metrics from various sources (system, applications, containers)
  • Database Engine: Time-series database optimized for real-time metrics storage with automatic data retention management
  • Web Server: Built-in web server providing the dashboard UI and API endpoints
  • Health Engine: Processes health checks and triggers alerts based on configured thresholds
  • Streaming Engine: Enables metric streaming between parent and child nodes

Netdata Cloud (Optional)​

Centralized SaaS platform for unified monitoring across multiple Netdata agents:

  • Provides aggregated views across all infrastructure
  • Centralized alerting and notification management
  • Team collaboration features and role-based access control
  • No metric data storage - acts as a proxy to individual agents

Data Collection Methods​

Netdata supports multiple data collection approaches:

  1. Internal Collectors: Native plugins written in C for maximum performance

    • System metrics (CPU, memory, disk, network)
    • Process monitoring
    • Container statistics

  2. External Collectors: Python-based collectors for application-specific metrics

    • Database monitoring (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis)
    • Web server metrics (Apache, Nginx, HAProxy)
    • Message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka)
    • Custom application metrics

  3. StatsD Integration: Accept metrics from StatsD-compatible applications

  4. Prometheus Endpoints: Scrape metrics from Prometheus exporters

  5. Custom Collectors: User-defined collectors for proprietary applications