See Every Second of Your Infrastructure’s Story

It depends on your needs. If you’re an MSP managing client endpoints with comprehensive IT services (patch management, ticketing, remote access, billing), you need RMM functionality Netdata doesn’t provide. If you’re a DevOps team needing deep infrastructure monitoring, Netdata is superior in every way. Many organizations use both - N-able for endpoint management, Netdata for real monitoring. Or they switch to lighter RMM alternatives (NinjaOne, Atera) and use Netdata for observability.

Most operational anomalies last 2-10 seconds - CPU spikes, memory bursts, network congestion, disk I/O bottlenecks. N-able’s 5-10 minute intervals average these away - you never know they happened. A service using 100% CPU for 5 seconds then 0% for 55 seconds appears as harmless 8% average in N-able. Netdata captures the actual 100% spike, flags it with ML, and helps you understand what caused it. When issues happen in seconds, you need per-second monitoring.

N-able uses static threshold-based alerts - you set CPU > 85% and hope it’s right. Netdata runs 18 ML models per metric trained on your actual system behavior. Anomalies are flagged only when ALL 18 models agree - achieving 99% false positive reduction in anomaly detection. The Anomaly Advisor automatically filters thousands of metrics to surface the top 30-50 root causes. You get smarter anomaly detection with dramatically less noise.

Netdata does not provide patch management or remote access - that’s not what we do. N-able is a comprehensive RMM suite; Netdata is specialized infrastructure observability. If you need those RMM features, you have options: (1) Keep N-able for RMM, add Netdata for monitoring depth. (2) Switch to lighter RMM alternative (NinjaOne, Atera) + Netdata. (3) Use native OS tools (Windows Update, apt/yum) + SSH + Netdata. Many organizations find they don’t need expensive RMM platforms once they have Netdata’s visibility.

N-able uses complex per-endpoint pricing with separate fees for different features and variable annual increases. Netdata uses transparent per-node pricing with all features included and volume discounts. No surprise fees, no hidden add-ons, no variable charges. Many organizations report significant cost savings switching to Netdata while getting substantially better monitoring capabilities.

Absolutely - this is the recommended approach. Install Netdata on 5-10 critical servers while keeping N-able running. Within minutes, you’ll see the difference: Netdata’s per-second charts revealing issues N-able’s 5-10 minute averages hide, ML anomaly detection flagging problems automatically, AI insights explaining what’s wrong in plain English. After 30 days, you’ll have clear evidence of which tool provides better visibility. Many customers start this way and gradually expand Netdata as its value becomes undeniable.

N-able users often report limited analytics and reporting capabilities that require workarounds. Netdata takes the opposite approach: algorithmic dashboards generate automatically from discovered data - every metric visualized from minute one. No query languages, no manual configuration. Each chart provides 360° analytical views equivalent to 25+ Grafana charts. AI Insights generate professional reports in 2-3 minutes: infrastructure summary, capacity planning, performance optimization, anomaly analysis. You get better reporting with zero effort.

N-able users report performance challenges at larger scales. Netdata’s distributed architecture scales linearly to 100,000+ nodes - each node operates independently, adding capacity without affecting existing performance. We process 4.5+ billion metrics/second globally. At our 4.6M metrics/s benchmark, Netdata used 36% less CPU, 88% less RAM, 97% less disk I/O than Prometheus. There are no device limits, no performance walls.

N-able users express concerns about vendor access to systems. Netdata takes the opposite approach: all observability data stays on-premises - only metadata (hostnames, chart titles) syncs to Netdata Cloud. Zero vendor access to your metrics or logs. SOC 2 Type 2 certified with open source transparency (audit the code yourself). Air-gapped deployment available. Complete data sovereignty by design.

Yes, and with significantly more depth. Netdata monitors: OS (CPU, memory, disk, network), processes, services, containers, Kubernetes, databases, web servers, message brokers, cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP), hardware (IPMI, sensors, GPUs), network devices (SNMP), custom applications (StatsD, OpenMetrics, Prometheus), logs (systemd-journal, Windows Event Logs), and 800+ integrations. The difference: Netdata collects per-second with ML anomaly detection on every metric, while N-able collects every 5-10 minutes with basic thresholds.

Phase 1: Deploy Netdata alongside N-able (monitoring overlap, zero risk). Phase 2: Validate Netdata’s superiority over 30-90 days (see the difference yourself). Phase 3: Decide your path: (A) Keep both - N-able for RMM, Netdata for monitoring. (B) Reduce N-able to essential RMM functions only. (C) Switch to lighter RMM (NinjaOne, Atera) + Netdata. (D) Go full Netdata if RMM not needed. Result: Better monitoring with cost savings. We provide free migration assistance and side-by-side comparison reports.

Yes. Netdata integrates with your existing stack: Alert routing to PagerDuty, Slack, Teams, Jira, ServiceNow, email, webhooks. Metrics export to Prometheus, InfluxDB, Graphite, OpenTSDB. Logs use standard systemd-journal (Linux) and Windows Event Logs. APIs for custom integrations. Grafana plugin for existing dashboards. Model Context Protocol (MCP) for AI assistants. Netdata enhances your workflows without disrupting them - you can keep using tools you already have while gaining Netdata’s superior monitoring capabilities.

Yes, but understand the use case difference. For client endpoint management (patch, ticket, bill), keep N-able or consider alternatives. For your own infrastructure monitoring (your operations center, your services, your DevOps team), Netdata provides vastly superior visibility. Many MSPs run dual platforms: N-able for client management, Netdata for internal operations. You get right tool for each job instead of one mediocre all-in-one. Your DevOps team gets real-time troubleshooting tools; your client management stays simple.

Netdata: 60 seconds. One-line install, automatic discovery, instant dashboards, ML training begins immediately (first results in 15 minutes). N-able: Hours to days. Users report steep learning curve, complex configuration, manual dashboard building, extensive setup required. With Netdata, you’re productive from minute one - no query languages to learn, no dashboards to build, no thresholds to tune. Junior engineers get senior-level visibility automatically. This is the fastest path to comprehensive infrastructure observability.