gostatsd is a statsd server implementation written in Go that adds tag support to Etsy's original statsd design.
The tool solves the problem of collecting and aggregating metrics from distributed systems. It listens for UDP packets containing metric data and processes them through a pluggable backend system. Being written in Go allows it to utilize all available CPU cores, making it straightforward to scale the server based on incoming load. The project provides both a ready-to-use server and a library for building customized metric collection servers.
The tool suits teams already using statsd who want a performant, multi-core capable implementation with tag support. It works in two modes: standalone mode processes and aggregates raw metrics before sending to backends, and forwarder mode relays metrics onward. The pluggable backend architecture means you can integrate with various monitoring systems by implementing the backend interface. The project includes Docker support for quick evaluation with Graphite and Grafana, and can listen on either UDP sockets or Unix domain sockets on Linux systems.
Development activity shows consistent maintenance with regular dependency updates and active issue resolution. The project maintains clear build and setup documentation, requiring developers to match a specific Go version and run setup steps before compilation. Docker and Makefile tooling are actively maintained to support multiple deployment scenarios. The codebase includes protobuf code generation as part of the build process, with generated files available to avoid requiring local protobuf installation in most cases.
