Netdata

What is Netdata?

Netdata provides live charts of CPU, memory, disk, network, and many application metrics, updating every second. It started as an open‑source project in 2016 and has matured into a widely‑used monitoring solution with a large community and regular releases. It runs as a lightweight daemon and serves a web UI on localhost, requiring no external database.

The tool is aimed at system administrators, developers, and hobbyists who need instant insight into system behaviour without setting up a full‑blown monitoring stack. It works well on single machines as well as on clusters when combined with Netdata Cloud.

Compared with GlassWire on Windows, Netdata feels more technical and less polished; the UI is functional rather than glossy, but the depth of data and the ability to drill down to per‑process metrics far exceed what GlassWire offers. There is no built‑in firewall visualisation, so you’ll need a separate tool for that.

Best for: Anyone who wants real‑time system metrics without the complexity of a full monitoring stack.

Key features of Netdata

• Per‑second metrics for CPU, memory, disk I/O, network, and processes
• Automatic detection of over 300 applications and services
• Interactive web dashboard with zoomable charts
• Alarm notifications via email, Slack, Discord, etc.
• Zero‑configuration installation on most distros
• Export to Prometheus, Graphite, or InfluxDB
• Netdata Cloud for centralized view of multiple nodes
• Plugin system for custom data collection

Tips for Windows users

GlassWire users will miss the integrated firewall view; keep your existing Windows firewall rules and use a Linux firewall tool such as ufw or firewalld alongside Netdata. Netdata stores its configuration in /etc/netdata and its data in /var/lib/netdata, so there are no Windows‑style .exe shortcuts—access the UI via http://localhost:19999. Learn the hotkeys (e.g., ‘p’ to pause, ‘s’ to search) to navigate charts quickly.