Infrastructure Monitoring That Sees What Application Tracing Misses

Yes, many organizations use both—Netdata for infrastructure monitoring and Honeycomb for application tracing. This complementary approach provides comprehensive observability: Netdata catches infrastructure issues (memory leaks, disk saturation, network congestion) while Honeycomb traces application requests across microservices. When Netdata adds native distributed tracing in Q2 2026, you can reevaluate if consolidation makes sense.

Netdata uses predictable per node pricing with unlimited metrics, logs, and users—no cardinality penalties or volume surprises. Honeycomb uses event-based pricing that scales with event volume and cardinality. Organizations typically achieve 90% cost reduction on infrastructure monitoring by using Netdata’s per node model compared to event-based APM pricing. Visit our pricing page for current rates.

Honeycomb enforces fixed 60-day retention across all plans with no extension option. This is insufficient for compliance requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS typically require 1-7 years). Netdata provides unlimited configurable retention with all data stored on-premises. Industry-leading 0.6 bytes per sample compression enables years of retention in gigabytes, not terabytes.

Not yet. Netdata will add native OpenTelemetry traces support in Q2 2026. Today, Netdata excels at infrastructure monitoring (systems, containers, databases, networks) where Honeycomb has gaps. For distributed tracing now, use OpenTelemetry with any backend including Honeycomb. When Netdata’s traces launch, you’ll have unified metrics plus logs plus traces with the same zero-configuration, edge-based approach.

Netdata installs in under 60 seconds with zero configuration—800+ integrations auto-discovered, pre-configured alerts, and algorithmic dashboards work immediately. Honeycomb requires hours to days for initial setup with manual OpenTelemetry instrumentation per service, plus weeks to months for team proficiency with the query builder. For infrastructure monitoring, Netdata delivers instant time-to-value.

Honeycomb offers ML-powered anomaly detection as part of Honeycomb Intelligence suite. Netdata’s edge-based ML is production-proven: 18 unsupervised k-means models per metric trained locally with consensus-based detection. Key difference: Netdata’s ML runs at the edge without cloud dependency, while Honeycomb’s requires cloud connectivity. Both platforms offer AI-powered troubleshooting.

Yes, and more comprehensively for infrastructure. Netdata provides complete Kubernetes visibility: nodes, pods, containers, services, control plane—all auto-discovered with per-second metrics and <5% CPU overhead. Honeycomb focuses on application-level K8s observability through tracing. For infrastructure issues (node resource exhaustion, network policies, storage problems), Netdata provides superior visibility that Honeycomb cannot match.

Netdata has no cardinality penalties—collect unlimited high-cardinality metrics at no additional cost. Resources scale linearly per metric, and each agent handles cardinality independently—explosions can’t cascade. Edge-based architecture processes high-cardinality data locally. Storage efficiency (0.6 bytes per sample) enables years of high-cardinality retention. Honeycomb’s event-based pricing creates unpredictable costs where high-cardinality dimensions (user IDs, session IDs) significantly increase expenses.

Today: Use Netdata for infrastructure monitoring (90% cost reduction) plus Honeycomb for application tracing if needed. Total cost lower than Honeycomb alone while gaining comprehensive infrastructure coverage. Q2 2026: When Netdata adds native distributed tracing, assess full consolidation. Many organizations use both long-term—Netdata for infrastructure, Honeycomb for traces—at lower total cost than Honeycomb alone.

Yes, completely. Netdata Agents work fully offline with local dashboards, storage, ML, and alerting. For centralized dashboards in air-gapped environments, deploy Netdata Cloud On-Premises (Kubernetes cluster). All observability data stays on-premises—only metadata travels to Cloud for unified access. Honeycomb requires cloud connectivity for ML features and Intelligence suite.

Both platforms offer AI-powered troubleshooting. Netdata provides AI Co-Engineer via Model Context Protocol (MCP)—integrate any LLM (Claude, GPT, Gemini, self-hosted) with your infrastructure observability. No AI vendor lock-in. Honeycomb Intelligence includes Canvas AI-guided workspace and Query Assistant but requires Honeycomb Cloud. Key difference: Netdata supports bring-your-own-LLM for AI autonomy.

Honeycomb is an OpenTelemetry ecosystem leader and major CNCF project contributor. Netdata also supports OpenTelemetry (native OTLP receiver, custom OTel Collector distribution) plus 800+ native integrations with zero configuration. For infrastructure monitoring, Netdata’s auto-discovery eliminates the instrumentation burden OpenTelemetry requires. Both platforms embrace open standards.

For infrastructure monitoring: Yes. Netdata replaces Prometheus, Node Exporter, cAdvisor, Grafana dashboards, Loki logs, and dozens of specialized collectors—with zero configuration and 90% cost reduction. For application tracing: Not until Q2 2026 when native distributed tracing launches. Today, use Netdata for infrastructure plus your preferred APM for traces. When Netdata’s traces arrive, reevaluate full consolidation.

Netdata provides zero-pipeline logs management: direct systemd-journal access (Linux) and Windows Event Logs with comprehensive indexing—90% cost reduction vs Elasticsearch/Splunk. No log shipping, no central clusters, no ingestion fees. Honeycomb requires log collection pipeline via OpenTelemetry Collector or agents. For logs, Netdata’s architecture eliminates infrastructure overhead and costs while providing instant correlation with metrics.

Start complementary: Install Netdata alongside Honeycomb for infrastructure monitoring. See comprehensive system visibility Honeycomb misses. Evaluate cost savings (typically 90% on infrastructure portion). Keep Honeycomb for application tracing if needed. When Netdata adds native distributed tracing (Q2 2026), assess full consolidation. Many organizations use both long-term—Netdata for infrastructure, Honeycomb for traces—at lower total cost than Honeycomb alone.