Cacti vs Netdata
A side-by-side comparison on deployment model, data residency, licensing basis and security coverage. Structural facts are verifiable against vendor documentation; the scored dimensions are our assessment.
Cacti
The Cacti Group
6.7
Average across eight dimensions
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Licensing
- Free
- Time to value
- Medium
- Segment
- SMB / education
- G2
- —
Netdata
Netdata Inc.
7.1
Average across eight dimensions
- Deployment
- Hybrid
- Licensing
- Free agent (5-node cap) / per-node paid tiers
- Time to value
- Fast
- Segment
- SMB / mid-market
- G2
- 4.6 (54)
Score by dimension
| Dimension | CA | ND |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency control | 10 | 6 |
| Pricing value | 9.8 | 8 |
| Detection accuracy | 6 | 7 |
| Response speed | 5.5 | 7 |
| Ease of setup | 6 | 9 |
| Management UX | 5.5 | 8 |
| Integration depth | 6 | 7 |
| Security coverage | 4.5 | 5 |
What the comparison says
Cacti is self-hosted and Netdata is hybrid. Where your obligations dictate residency, that difference tends to settle the choice before any score is read.
Cacti licenses on free, Netdata on free agent (5-node cap) / per-node paid tiers. Neither bills on data volume, so the comparison is about what each licence includes rather than how much you send it.
Cacti leads on residency and pricing value. Netdata leads on fault detection, alerting speed, ease of setup, management UX and integrations.
Cacti
- +Free, stable and extremely light on resources.
- +Long-established SNMP graphing with a large body of community templates.
- +Runs happily on modest hardware in small or isolated environments.
- −Graphing-first: alerting requires plugins and is not a core strength.
- −Interface and workflow are dated, and development pace is slow.
Best for Small or isolated networks needing long-term interface graphing at no cost.
Watch out Treat this as a graphing tool rather than a monitoring and alerting platform.
Netdata
- +Per-second granularity out of the box with essentially no configuration.
- +Open-source agent keeps metrics on your hosts; a fully on-premises deployment is an enterprise-tier option.
- +Install to useful dashboard in minutes on a single host.
- −Host-centric rather than network-centric. SNMP and flow coverage is secondary.
- −The managed cloud layer is where multi-node features concentrate, which pulls data outward.
Best for Teams wanting high-resolution host metrics with minimal setup.
Watch out This is not a replacement for an SNMP-led network monitoring platform.
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Data last verified 2026-10-06. nPro publishes this comparison. Where nPro appears as one of the platforms listed, its card is marked and its scores are our own assessment. Third-party review scores are sourced from public vendor profiles. Structural facts are verifiable against each vendor's documentation: deployment model, licensing basis and residency.