Monitoring & observability: star history compared

Observability is where open source beat the commercial incumbents in plain sight. Grafana and Prometheus grew into the default dashboard-and-metrics pair for a generation of infrastructure, Netdata took the single-node niche with zero-config appeal, and SigNoz and VictoriaMetrics are the newer curves betting on all-in-one tracing and raw efficiency respectively. The OpenTelemetry collector's rise tracks the whole industry converging on one wire format.

Ranked by current GitHub stars · growth = stars gained in the trailing 90 days · data updated Jul 2026

Monitoring & observability — star history

FromTo

netdata/netdata
grafana/grafana
prometheus/prometheus
signoz/signoz
victoriametrics/victoriametrics
open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector

Ranking

6 repositories

#	Repository	Stars	+90d	First star	Health
1	netdata/netdata	79,961	~58	2013	debt charts
2	grafana/grafana	75,905	~130	2014	debt charts
3	prometheus/prometheus	65,397	~103	2013	debt charts
4	signoz/signoz	31,747	~88	2021	debt charts
5	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	17,436	~50	2018	debt charts
6	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector	7,323	~25	2019	debt charts

Decision matrix

Repository health compared

Live Postgres analysis · unavailable data stays labeled

Popularity is only one axis. Compare technical scale, maintenance cadence, ownership resilience, and change pressure using the same completed repository analysis behind each report.

:: Reach

Popularity and real-world adoption

Signal	netdata/netdata	grafana/grafana	prometheus/prometheus	signoz/signoz	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
GitHub starsCurrent public GitHub metadata total.	◆79,961	75,905	65,397	31,747	17,436	7,323
Stars gained · trailing 90dChange in the newest 90 days covered by each cached series.	+58	◆+130	+103	+88	+50	+25
ForksCurrent public GitHub metadata total.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Largest package audienceLargest resolved registry total; sources are shown explicitly.	No resolved package	No resolved package	No resolved package	No resolved package	No resolved package	No resolved package
Repository ageElapsed years since the GitHub creation timestamp.	13 years	13 years	14 years	5.6 years	7.8 years	7.2 years

:: Codebase

Size and technical center of gravity

Signal	netdata/netdata	grafana/grafana	prometheus/prometheus	signoz/signoz	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
Dominant languageLargest share of analyzed code lines at current HEAD.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Code linesAnalyzed source lines at current HEAD, excluding blanks and comments.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Languages representedLanguages with non-zero files or line counts.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available

:: Maintenance

Commit volume and recent operating cadence

Signal	netdata/netdata	grafana/grafana	prometheus/prometheus	signoz/signoz	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
Repository commitsFull repository commit total reported by the analysis.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Commits · trailing 90dCommit count in the newest 90 days covered by the repository analysis.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available

:: Ownership

How broadly maintenance responsibility is distributed

Signal	netdata/netdata	grafana/grafana	prometheus/prometheus	signoz/signoz	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
Bus factorFewest analyzed contributors carrying at least half the commits.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Top contributor concentrationShare of attributed commits carried by the most active contributor.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available

:: Change signals

Debt markers and fix pressure in frequently changed files

Signal	netdata/netdata	grafana/grafana	prometheus/prometheus	signoz/signoz	victoriametrics/victoriametrics	open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
Fix-labelled share · frequently changed filesFix-labelled commits divided by commits across the analyzed high-frequency file set.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Recent TODO/FIXME movementLatest cumulative marker count and its change over the trailing 90 days.	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available

Head to head

open in the builder

grafana vs netdata netdata vs prometheus grafana vs prometheus

Frequently asked

Which of these monitoring & observability has the most GitHub stars?

netdata/netdata is the most-starred of the monitoring & observability gitdebt compares, with 79,961 GitHub stars as of Jul 2026. It earned its first star in 2013.

Which of these monitoring & observability is growing the fastest?

grafana/grafana added the most stars over the last 90 days of its cached history — about 130 new stars, compared with about 58 for the category leader netdata/netdata. 90-day figures are approximate for older repos, whose history is downsampled.

How is this comparison computed?

The table ranks public repository metadata by current total stars. When historical stargazer timestamps are available, gitdebt plots their cumulative series on shared axes and estimates trailing 90-day growth. Repo-health charts come independently from each repository's commit history.

Related categories

all categories

Fastest-growing repos across all of gitdebt