I use Netdata for a few homelab servers in lieu of learning and cultivating a complex grafana/prometheus setup (one docker container with a cut/paste token api vs a needy collection of interlinked pet containers with database config).
It’s great for things like “I just added a new docker container how does that affect cpu/memory over time” and some interesting (but inessential) automated alarms eg I get emails about Ethernet fifos along with advice on which Linux kernel options to fix it (which I ignore but it’s fascinating).
Doubt I’d ever need more than the 5 servers the free plan offers but even if I did I would not pay the $90 per year home lab license fee.
One thing stopping me deploying netdata on more servers is that it is very resource intensive in default config. I tried it on a low power celeron server and my ancient Synology and in both cases the agent was consuming 10-20% CPU before I nuked it. I think you can lower the polling but I didn’t spend much time investigating.
As for our subscription plans, if you're managing fewer than 6 nodes, you can always be on our Community plan. Should you have more nodes and prefer not to choose one of our Netdata Cloud plans, you can utilize our agent dashboard.
It’s great for things like “I just added a new docker container how does that affect cpu/memory over time” and some interesting (but inessential) automated alarms eg I get emails about Ethernet fifos along with advice on which Linux kernel options to fix it (which I ignore but it’s fascinating).
Doubt I’d ever need more than the 5 servers the free plan offers but even if I did I would not pay the $90 per year home lab license fee.
One thing stopping me deploying netdata on more servers is that it is very resource intensive in default config. I tried it on a low power celeron server and my ancient Synology and in both cases the agent was consuming 10-20% CPU before I nuked it. I think you can lower the polling but I didn’t spend much time investigating.