Akvorado vs pmacct
Akvorado
akvorado.netpmacct
pmacct.netSide by side
| Figure | Akvorado | pmacct |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 0 |
| Spec score · Network Traffic Analysis Software | 8.1 (#4) | 6.9 (#20) |
| Spec score · Bandwidth Monitoring Software | 8.1 (#9) | 7.0 (#29) |
| Deployment | Akvorado is available as a Docker image or a prebuilt binary; the documented prebuilt binary is for Linux x86-64. | The project provides official Docker images and build instructions for Debian or Ubuntu and CentOS or RHEL. |
| Purpose | Akvorado collects network flows, enriches them with metadata, and provides a web interface to explore the data. | pmacct is a set of passive network monitoring tools for accounting, classifying, aggregating, and exporting network traffic. |
In their own words
Akvorado
Akvorado is free network-flow software that receives NetFlow, IPFIX, and sFlow records, enriches them, and exposes the results through a web interface. Its inlet forwards incoming flows to Kafka. The outlet parses and augments them before sending data to ClickHouse. SNMP can supply exporter and interface details, while IPinfo or MaxMind can add geographic information. Optional BGP routes received through BMP contribute AS numbers, AS paths, and communities. A Grafana plugin is available, and the inlet, outlet, orchestrator, and console expose HTTP metrics. Written in Go, Akvorado is delivered as a single binary or Docker image, but deployment requires Kafka and ClickHouse. Recommended resources are 8 vCPUs, 100 GB disk, and 16 GB RAM, with AMD64 or ARM64 listed. The console expects an authenticating proxy to provide user headers. Relational data can use SQLite, MySQL, or PostgreSQL; without one, data remains in memory and disappears on restart. Downgrades are unsupported. The license is AGPLv3.