Feel the Pulse of Your Infrastructure in Real Time

Netdata captures every heartbeat of your infrastructure with per-second granularity and sub-2-second total latency, while Guance collects metrics every 30-60 seconds. This 30-60× difference means Netdata catches 90%+ of transient issues that Guance misses completely - CPU spikes, memory bursts, network microbursts, and cascading failures that last only 2-10 seconds. For example, a database query consuming 100% CPU for 5 seconds every 20 seconds shows as a harmful spike in Netdata but appears as a harmless 25% average in Guance’s 30-second monitoring.

You can absolutely run Netdata alongside Guance - many organizations start this way. Install Netdata on 5-10 representative nodes while keeping Guance unchanged, then compare what each tool shows. You’ll likely notice Netdata alerts 30-60 seconds earlier and catches transient issues Guance misses. Common outcomes: use Netdata for infrastructure monitoring (per-second visibility) and keep Guance for application tracing if needed, or gradually migrate fully to Netdata as you see the value. There’s zero risk with this parallel approach.

Netdata typically delivers 90% cost reduction compared to usage-based monitoring platforms at scale. With Guance’s usage-based gradient billing across multiple feature modules, costs can spike unpredictably with data volume. Netdata’s predictable per node pricing includes unlimited metrics, unlimited logs, unlimited users, ML anomaly detection, AI insights, and alerting - all with costs that scale only with infrastructure growth, never with data volume. This eliminates surprise bills and makes budget planning simple and accurate.

Distributed tracing is coming to Netdata in Q2 2026 via OpenTelemetry integration. Currently, Netdata provides comprehensive infrastructure-level visibility through apps.plugin (zero-code process monitoring) and extensive network monitoring. These capabilities catch 90%+ of issues without tracing. Organizations needing code-level distributed tracing TODAY should consider keeping Guance for APM or waiting for Netdata’s Q2 2026 release. Many teams find Netdata’s infrastructure insights sufficient for their troubleshooting needs.

Netdata installs with a single command and reaches full visibility in 60 seconds - auto-discovering 800+ integrations, generating algorithmic dashboards, starting ML-based anomaly detection (first results in 15 minutes), and configuring 400+ pre-configured alerts automatically. Guance requires hours to days of manual configuration: setting up collectors for each service, building dashboards, tuning thresholds, and learning DQL query language. Netdata is a single self-contained binary with minimal dependencies.

Guance offers broader feature coverage across RUM, CI Visibility, SIEM, and FinOps - capabilities Netdata doesn’t currently provide. However, unified platforms often result in paying for features you don’t fully utilize. Netdata’s philosophy is best-in-class infrastructure monitoring that integrates with existing tools rather than forcing you to replace everything. For specialized needs like RUM or FinOps, you can integrate best-of-breed tools alongside Netdata. This approach often delivers better results than compromising on infrastructure monitoring quality for feature breadth.

Netdata eliminates data loss risks through distributed edge architecture - each agent operates independently with local buffering, automatic replication when connectivity restores, and WORM (write-once-read-many) storage preventing corruption. Netdata benchmark testing confirmed 100% sample completeness. During incidents, you have ALL the data needed for root cause analysis - no ‘we weren’t collecting that’ moments. Centralized approaches face multiple data loss vectors including rate limits, cache overflow, and bandwidth constraints.

Netdata trains 18 unsupervised k-means models per metric directly at the edge, requiring unanimous consensus before flagging anomalies. This achieves 99% false positive reduction in anomaly detection with theoretical rate of 10^-36 (1% per model ^ 18 models). Models train continuously every 3 hours, work offline in air-gapped environments, and require zero configuration. Cloud-based ML approaches require external dependencies and configuration. Netdata’s edge-native approach ensures data sovereignty (ML models never leave infrastructure), works during outages, and provides anomaly detection without cloud round-trips.

Yes - Netdata Functions provide browser-based access to console tools with history and ML integration: processes (replacing top/htop), network connections (netstat/ss), systemd journal (journalctl), systemd services (systemd-cgtop), block devices (iostat), and more. You get the same per-second precision as console tools without SSH access, plus historical data and anomaly detection. This eliminates SSH access to production (security improvement), provides centralized access control via RBAC, creates audit trails for debugging activities, and reduces attack surface.

Netdata has 76,300+ GitHub stars (one of the most popular monitoring projects), 1.5 million downloads per day, active Discord community with thousands of users, comprehensive documentation at learn.netdata.cloud, and numerous public case studies with real company names. This massive community means Netdata users get immediate help from experienced peers, solutions to common problems are readily available, and transparent development builds trust.

Netdata currently lacks distributed tracing (coming Q2 2026), native RUM SDK, dedicated CI Visibility product, full SIEM capabilities, and cloud cost management (FinOps). Guance excels in these areas today. Additionally, Guance has stronger China/Asia-Pacific cloud provider integration (Alibaba, Huawei, Tencent). Organizations requiring these specific capabilities TODAY should consider Guance or plan to integrate complementary tools with Netdata. However, for infrastructure monitoring - which catches 90%+ of issues - Netdata’s per-second visibility, zero-configuration deployment, and predictable pricing deliver superior value.

Netdata eliminates entire log infrastructure through direct systemd-journal access - no Elasticsearch clusters, no Logstash, no ingestion fees, no pipelines. Every field is auto-indexed by journald, queries analyze 1M entries before sampling (vs. 5K for traditional tools - 200× more accurate), and costs are 90% lower than traditional log management. Netdata’s approach provides instant correlation with metrics (same source), native SIEM integration (SIEMs support journal ingestion), and Forward Secure Sealing (FSS) for tamper detection - all while keeping logs where they’re generated for data sovereignty.

Start with parallel deployment: install Netdata on 5-10 representative nodes while keeping Guance running unchanged. Compare what each tool shows over 2-3 weeks - you’ll likely notice Netdata alerts 30-60 seconds earlier and catches transient issues Guance misses. Evaluate cost savings: compare Netdata’s predictable per-node pricing vs. Guance’s usage-based bills. Then decide: keep both (Netdata for infrastructure, Guance for application tracing if needed), or gradually expand Netdata to more nodes and deprecate Guance. Most organizations find Netdata’s infrastructure insights sufficient and migrate fully, but the parallel approach eliminates risk and proves value before commitment.

Netdata uses predictable per node pricing with unlimited metrics, unlimited logs, and unlimited users - costs scale only with infrastructure growth, never with data volume. Usage-based pricing models can cause unexpected cost spikes when configuration parameters change or traffic increases. For example, a traffic spike that doubles metrics volume potentially doubles your usage-based bill, while Netdata’s bill remains unchanged. This predictability enables accurate budget planning, eliminates anxiety about collecting comprehensive data, and ensures you pay for infrastructure monitoring capability, not data consumption.

Yes - Netdata’s NIDL (Nodes, Instances, Dimensions, Labels) framework provides complete analytical power without query syntax. Each chart has dropdown menus with statistics (min, avg, max, anomaly rate), click-to-filter by any dimension/instance/label/node, group by any combination, time synchronization across views, and built-in correlation analysis. Each Netdata chart is equivalent to 25+ Grafana charts. During 3am incidents, you focus on solving problems, not debugging query syntax. Junior engineers troubleshoot at expert level from day one. For advanced users who prefer natural language, Netdata supports AI Chat via Model Context Protocol (MCP) - ask questions using Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or any MCP-compatible AI.