Build Resilient Platforms With Real-Time Intelligence

Netdata’s distributed architecture eliminates cardinality limits entirely. Each agent processes its own metrics independently - there’s no central aggregation point where cardinality becomes a bottleneck. Monitor millions of unique time-series without exponential costs or performance degradation. Traditional platforms charge based on cardinality; Netdata charges per node regardless of metric volume.

Yes, for infrastructure monitoring. Netdata provides superior real-time visibility (per-second vs 10-30s), zero-configuration deployment (vs weeks of setup), and built-in ML anomaly detection. However, if you require distributed tracing today, you’ll need to supplement Netdata until tracing support ships in Q2 2026. Netdata excels at infrastructure observability while complementing specialized APM tools.

60 seconds to install the Helm chart, then immediate visibility. Netdata auto-discovers all pods, containers, services, and nodes - generating dashboards algorithmically and activating ML anomaly detection within 15 minutes. No manual configuration, no dashboard building, no query language training required. Compare this to days or weeks for traditional monitoring stacks.

Netdata charges predictable per-node pricing (Business plan) with unlimited metrics, logs, and users. Traditional platforms charge per-host PLUS per-metric, per-GB, and per-user fees. The distributed architecture also eliminates data egress charges by keeping data local. Compare pricing models to understand the difference for your specific infrastructure.

Yes, with Spaces and Rooms. Spaces provide physical isolation (separate billing, infrastructure) ideal for MSPs managing multiple customers. Rooms provide logical isolation within a Space for team segmentation. Both support RBAC, SSO via OIDC/Okta, and SCIM group mapping. Unlimited users at no additional cost.

Absolutely. Netdata Agents and Parents run entirely on-premises with local dashboards and APIs. For centralized management in air-gapped environments, deploy Netdata Cloud On-Premises (Kubernetes cluster). All observability data stays within your infrastructure - only metadata travels to Cloud for unified dashboards.

Netdata trains 18 unsupervised k-means models per metric at the edge, achieving 99% false positive reduction through consensus-based detection. Unlike cloud-based ML (Watchdog, Davis), Netdata’s edge ML has zero latency and works offline. The Anomaly Advisor automatically correlates issues, surfacing root cause in the top 30-50 metrics without manual investigation.

None. Netdata’s NIDL (Nodes-Instances-Dimensions-Labels) framework enables point-and-click analysis without PromQL or SQL. Each chart is equivalent to 25+ Grafana charts with interactive exploration. This eliminates the learning curve and makes observability accessible to all team members, not just query language experts.

Netdata queries systemd-journal files directly on Linux and Windows Event Logs natively - no shipping, no indexing, no central clusters. This eliminates Filebeat/Fluentd/Logstash infrastructure and reduces costs significantly versus Elasticsearch or Splunk. Analyze 1 million log entries before sampling (200× more than traditional tools) with instant correlation to metrics.

Yes. Netdata provides REST APIs, webhooks, and integrations with PagerDuty, Slack, Teams, and 20+ notification platforms. Use the Terraform provider for infrastructure-as-code workflows. Send deployment events via StatsD for correlation. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) enables AI assistant integration with Claude, ChatGPT, and other LLMs.

Minimal. Netdata Agents use <5% CPU and 150-200MB RAM per node - validated by the University of Amsterdam as the most energy-efficient monitoring solution. For resource-constrained systems, offload ML and storage to Parents, reducing agent footprint to ~2% CPU and <100MB RAM. This efficiency enables monitoring at scale without impacting production workloads.

Not yet. Distributed tracing is planned for Q2 2026. Until then, use Netdata for infrastructure observability (metrics, logs, ML) and supplement with Jaeger, Tempo, or Zipkin for application tracing. Netdata excels at infrastructure-level troubleshooting while complementing specialized APM tools.

Netdata reduces alert noise through component-level alerts - 400+ pre-configured alerts that are more accurate and actionable than generic threshold-based alerts. Additionally, ML-based anomaly detection provides another signal for identifying unusual behavior, though it operates independently from the alerting system. While alert fatigue cannot be completely eliminated, intelligent alert configuration and component-level precision significantly improve signal-to-noise ratio.

Yes. While Netdata provides fully automated algorithmic dashboards, you can create custom dashboards with drag-and-drop. Alerts are configured via text files (version-control friendly) or through the Cloud UI. The REST API and Terraform provider enable programmatic management. However, most users find the automated dashboards sufficient - each chart provides 360° analysis without manual configuration.

Netdata uses three storage tiers updated in parallel: per-second (days-weeks), per-minute (weeks-months), and per-hour (months-years). The industry-leading 0.6 bytes/sample compression enables years of retention in gigabytes. Configure retention per tier based on your needs. For high availability, Parents replicate data and provide centralized storage for ephemeral nodes.