When comparing atop vs netdata, the Slant community recommends netdata for most people. In the question“What are the best system monitors for UNIX-like systems?” netdata is ranked 5th while atop is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose netdata is:
Very nice UI with a good overview and nice colours.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro All in one
Better than top, htop and iotop
Pro Better than htop, top, and iotop
Highlights bottlenecks, so you know what's creating wait states.
Pro Complete and flexibe
Has a ton of possible profiles to show exactly what you need to monitor.
Pro Pleasant UI
Very nice UI with a good overview and nice colours.
Pro Plug and play
No need to configure anything to get started.
Pro Access via web
NetData is accessible via the web. So even remote hosts can be monitored.
Pro Smooth installation and setup
Cons
Con Only in browser (if you use it together with atop, you can do without though)
The application is only accessible via the web browser. So if it's not running it has to be started and then accessed via the browser.
Con Takes up a significant portion of cpu and memory in smaller server instances
