Prometheus vs Netdata: Monitoring Approaches Compared

Zero-Config Dashboards vs Query-Anything Metrics

You installed Netdata and had 1,000+ metrics with real-time graphs in 30 seconds. You installed Prometheus and stared at a blank prometheus.yml wondering what to scrape. That first experience captures the core difference.

Netdata is an observability platform. Install it, see everything immediately. Real-time per-second metrics, auto-discovered services, built-in dashboards, anomaly detection. It optimizes for time-to-insight.

Prometheus is a metrics database. It collects, stores, and queries time-series data. You build everything else — dashboards (Grafana), alerting (Alertmanager), service discovery. It optimizes for flexibility and scale.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Prometheus v3.9.1	Netdata v2.5.2
Primary function	Metrics collection + storage + querying	Real-time monitoring + dashboards
Data model	Pull-based (scrapes targets)	Agent-based (local collectors)
Query language	PromQL (powerful, steep learning curve)	Built-in filters + NIDL
Built-in dashboards	None (use Grafana)	Yes, 200+ out of the box
Auto-discovery	Service discovery (DNS, Consul, K8s)	Auto-detects local services
Default resolution	15-second scrape interval	1-second granularity
Alerting	Alertmanager (separate component)	Built-in health monitoring
Anomaly detection	None built-in	ML-based anomaly detection
Storage	Local TSDB (configurable retention)	In-memory + disk (tiered)
Remote storage	Yes (Thanos, Cortex, Mimir)	Netdata Cloud (optional), export to Prometheus
Multi-node	Federation or remote write	Netdata Cloud or parent-child streaming
RAM usage	1-4 GB (depends on cardinality)	100-300 MB per node
Docker image	prom/prometheus:v3.9.1	netdata/netdata:v2.5.2
License	Apache-2.0	GPL-3.0

When Prometheus Is the Right Choice

Complex Infrastructure

If you’re monitoring 10+ servers, Kubernetes clusters, or microservices, Prometheus’s service discovery, PromQL, and ecosystem make it the industry standard. It integrates with everything — every major database, message queue, and orchestrator exposes Prometheus metrics.

Custom Alerting Rules

Prometheus + Alertmanager lets you write arbitrarily complex alert conditions:

# Alert when disk usage exceeds 85% for 10 minutes
groups:
  - name: disk
    rules:
      - alert: DiskSpaceRunningLow
        expr: (node_filesystem_avail_bytes / node_filesystem_size_bytes) < 0.15
        for: 10m
        labels:
          severity: warning
        annotations:
          summary: "Disk space below 15% on {{ $labels.instance }}"

PromQL can correlate metrics across services, compute rates, predict trends, and aggregate across dimensions. Netdata’s alerting is simpler — threshold-based with some built-in templates.

Long-Term Storage

Prometheus retains metrics for weeks or months locally, and integrates with Thanos, Cortex, or Grafana Mimir for years of retention. This matters for capacity planning, SLA reporting, and trend analysis.

Netdata stores high-resolution data locally (hours to days) and lower-resolution data longer, but it’s designed for real-time monitoring rather than historical analysis.

Grafana Dashboards

If you already use Grafana or plan to, Prometheus is its natural data source. Thousands of community dashboards exist for every service you might monitor. The Prometheus + Grafana + Node Exporter stack is the most popular self-hosted monitoring combination.

When Netdata Is the Right Choice

Single-Server Monitoring

You have one server running Docker containers. You want to see CPU, RAM, disk, network, and per-container metrics without configuring anything. Netdata does this in one command:

docker run -d --name=netdata \
  -p 19999:19999 \
  -v netdataconfig:/etc/netdata \
  -v netdatalib:/var/lib/netdata \
  -v netdatacache:/var/cache/netdata \
  -v /:/host/root:ro \
  -v /etc/passwd:/host/etc/passwd:ro \
  -v /etc/group:/host/etc/group:ro \
  -v /etc/localtime:/host/etc/localtime:ro \
  -v /proc:/host/proc:ro \
  -v /sys:/host/sys:ro \
  -v /var/log:/host/var/log:ro \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
  --cap-add SYS_PTRACE \
  --security-opt apparmor=unconfined \
  netdata/netdata:v2.5.2

Open http://your-server:19999 — hundreds of metrics, immediately.

Real-Time Troubleshooting

Netdata updates every second. When you’re debugging a performance issue live, second-by-second CPU, I/O, and network graphs are invaluable. Prometheus’s default 15-second scrape interval means you might miss short-lived spikes.

Low-Resource Environments

Netdata uses 100-300 MB of RAM. Prometheus with Node Exporter uses 1-3 GB, and adding Grafana brings it to 2-4 GB. On a 4 GB VPS running other services, the difference matters.

Architecture Comparison

Prometheus stack (typical):

Node Exporter (per host) → Prometheus (scrapes) → Grafana (visualizes)
                                    ↓
                            Alertmanager (alerts)

Minimum 3 containers for a basic monitoring setup. Each component is configured separately.

Netdata (typical):

Netdata agent (per host) → Built-in dashboard (visualizes + alerts)

One container. Everything built in.

Can You Combine Them?

Yes, and many people do. Netdata can export metrics in Prometheus format:

# netdata.conf
[exporting:prometheus]
  enabled = yes
  destination = http://prometheus:9090/api/v1/write

This gives you Netdata’s auto-discovery and real-time dashboards alongside Prometheus’s long-term storage and PromQL. The downside is running both consumes more resources than either alone.

FAQ

Can Netdata replace Prometheus + Grafana?

For single-server or small setups, yes. For complex multi-service environments, Kubernetes, or when you need PromQL’s analytical power, no.

Does Prometheus require Grafana?

Technically no — Prometheus has a built-in expression browser. Practically yes — nobody uses Prometheus without Grafana for dashboards.

Which scales better?

Prometheus. It’s designed for large-scale infrastructure monitoring with federation, remote write, and projects like Thanos for unlimited horizontal scaling. Netdata’s parent-child streaming works for dozens of nodes but isn’t built for thousands.

Can Netdata alert via Slack, PagerDuty, etc.?

Yes. Netdata has built-in notification integrations for Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, email, Telegram, and more. Configuration is simpler than Alertmanager but less flexible.

Which has better Docker container monitoring?

Netdata auto-discovers Docker containers and shows per-container CPU, memory, network, and I/O without any configuration. Prometheus needs cAdvisor or Docker metrics exporter configured as a scrape target.

Final Verdict

Use Netdata if you’re monitoring 1-5 servers, want instant visibility, and don’t want to learn PromQL or configure Grafana dashboards. It’s the fastest path from “nothing” to “full observability.”

Use Prometheus if you’re monitoring complex infrastructure, need powerful querying and alerting, plan to use Grafana, or need long-term metrics retention for capacity planning.

For most self-hosters with a single server or small homelab, Netdata gives you 80% of the value at 20% of the setup effort. Scale to Prometheus when Netdata’s limitations become real constraints — not before.

Related

• How to Self-Host Prometheus with Docker Compose
• How to Self-Host Netdata with Docker Compose
• Grafana vs Prometheus
• Grafana vs Netdata
• Uptime Kuma vs Grafana
• Best Self-Hosted Monitoring Tools
• Replace Datadog with Self-Hosted Monitoring