RRDtool 1.x

Judgement

What it is

Building block

What it does

A long-standing tool and library that stores time-series data in fixed-size round-robin files and draws graphs from them, used by monitoring tools like Cacti and MRTG.

Adopt it when

You maintain monitoring that already uses RRD files or want fixed-size storage that never grows.

Watch out

An older design with fixed resolution; modern monitoring stacks use Prometheus-style databases instead.

Ready for

Production-ready

Runs as

Command line and library

Built with

C

How established

Established: started 14 years ago, latest release v1.11.0.

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

Judged on 2026-11-03 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: RRDtool 1.x → GCC → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

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