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+<!--
+title: "Collect system metrics with Netdata"
+sidebar_label: "System metrics"
+description: "Netdata collects thousands of metrics from physical and virtual systems, IoT/edge devices, and containers with zero configuration."
+custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/docs/collect/system-metrics.md
+-->
+
+# Collect system metrics with Netdata
+
+Netdata collects thousands of metrics directly from the operating systems of physical and virtual systems, IoT/edge
+devices, and [containers](/docs/collect/container-metrics.md) with zero configuration.
+
+To gather system metrics, Netdata uses roughly a dozen plugins, each of which has one or more collectors for very
+specific metrics exposed by the host. The system metrics Netdata users interact with most for health monitoring and
+performance troubleshooting are collected and visualized by `proc.plugin`, `cgroups.plugin`, and `ebpf.plugin`.
+
+[**proc.plugin**](/collectors/proc.plugin/README.md) gathers metrics from the `/proc` and `/sys` folders in Linux
+systems, along with a few other endpoints, and is responsible for the bulk of the system metrics collected and
+visualized by Netdata. It collects CPU, memory, disks, load, networking, mount points, and more with zero configuration.
+It even allows Netdata to monitor its own resource utilization!
+
+[**cgroups.plugin**](/collectors/cgroups.plugin/README.md) collects rich metrics about containers and virtual machines
+using the virtual files under `/sys/fs/cgroup`. By reading cgroups, Netdata can instantly collect resource utilization
+metrics for systemd services, all containers (Docker, LXC, LXD, Libvirt, systemd-nspawn), and more. Learn more in the
+[collecting container metrics](/docs/collect/container-metrics.md) doc.
+
+[**ebpf.plugin**](/collectors/ebpf.plugin/README.md): Netdata's extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) collector
+monitors Linux kernel-level metrics for file descriptors, virtual filesystem IO, and process management. You can use our
+eBPF collector to analyze how and when a process accesses files, when it makes system calls, whether it leaks memory or
+creating zombie processes, and more.
+
+While the above plugins and associated collectors are the most important for system metrics, there are many others. You
+can find all system collectors in our [supported collectors list](/collectors/COLLECTORS.md#system-metrics).
+
+## Collect Windows system metrics
+
+Netdata is also capable of monitoring Windows systems. The [WMI
+collector](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/agent/collectors/go.d.plugin/modules/wmi) integrates with
+[windows_exporter](https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter), a small Go-based binary that you can run
+on Windows systems. The WMI collector then gathers metrics from an endpoint created by windows_exporter.
+
+First, [download windows_exporter](https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter#installation) and run it
+with the following collectors enabled, changing `0.14.0` to the version you downloaded.
+
+```powershell
+windows_exporter-0.14.0-amd64.exe --collectors.enabled="cpu,memory,net,logical_disk,os,system,logon"
+```
+
+Next, [configure the WMI
+collector](https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/agent/collectors/go.d.plugin/modules/wmi#configuration) to point to the URL
+and port of your exposed endpoint. Restart Netdata with `service netdata restart` and you'll start seeing Windows system
+metrics, such as CPU utilization, memory, bandwidth per NIC, number of processes, and much more.
+
+For information about collecting metrics from applications _running on Windows systems_, see the [application metrics
+doc](/docs/collect/application-metrics.md#collect-metrics-from-applications-running-on-windows).
+
+## What's next?
+
+Because there's some overlap between system metrics and [container metrics](/docs/collect/container-metrics.md), you
+should investigate Netdata's container compatibility if you use them heavily in your infrastructure.
+
+If you don't use containers, skip ahead to collecting [application metrics](/docs/collect/application-metrics.md) with
+Netdata.
+
+[![analytics](https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&aip=1&t=pageview&_s=1&ds=github&dr=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fnetdata%2Fnetdata&dl=https%3A%2F%2Fmy-netdata.io%2Fgithub%2Fdocs%2Fcollect%2Fsystem-metrics&_u=MAC~&cid=5792dfd7-8dc4-476b-af31-da2fdb9f93d2&tid=UA-64295674-3)](<>)