How to: Key Features
| Feature                    | Description                               | What Makes It Unique                                     |
|----------------------------|-------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| **Real-Time**              | Per-second data collection and processing | Works in a beat – click and see results instantly        |
| **Zero-Configuration**     | Automatic detection and discovery         | Auto-discovers everything on the nodes it runs           |
| **ML-Powered**             | Unsupervised anomaly detection            | Trains multiple ML models per metric at the edge         |
| **Long-Term Retention**    | High-performance storage                  | ~0.5 bytes per sample with tiered storage for archiving  |
| **Advanced Visualization** | Rich, interactive dashboards              | Slice and dice data without query language               |
| **Extreme Scalability**    | Native horizontal scaling                 | Parent-Child centralization with multi-million samples/s |
| **Complete Visibility**    | From infrastructure to applications       | Simplifies operations and eliminates silos               |
| **Edge-Based**             | Processing at your premises               | Distributes code instead of centralizing data            |

> [!NOTE]  
> Want to put Netdata to the test against Prometheus?
> Explore the [full comparison](https://www.netdata.cloud/blog/netdata-vs-prometheus-2025/).

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