head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs clockwork
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. clockwork has 5,946 stars, 332 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 320% (24,988 vs 5,946 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; clockwork is written in PHP under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, clockwork 6%. Apache SkyWalking was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (logging), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Apache SkyWalking | clockwork | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-08-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 332 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Apache SkyWalking if
- You weight community size — 25K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick clockwork if
- You want the clockwork feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and clockwork fits your workflow better
About Apache SkyWalking
Apache SkyWalking ========== SkyWalking : an APM (Application Performance Monitoring) system, especially designed for microservices, cloud native and container based architectures. Abstract SkyWalking is an open source APM system that provides monitoring, tracing and diagnosing capabilities for distributed systems in Cloud Native architectures. Distributed Tracing End to end distributed tracing. Service topology analysis, service centric observability and APIs dashboards. Agents for your stack Java, .Net Core, PHP, NodeJS, Golang, LUA, Rust, C++, Client JavaScript and Python agents with active development and…
read the full Apache SkyWalking overview →
About clockwork
Clockwork is a development tool for PHP available right in your browser. Clockwork gives you an insight into your application runtime including request data, performance metrics, log entries, database queries, cache queries, redis commands, dispatched events, queued jobs, rendered views and more for HTTP requests, commands, queue jobs and tests. This repository contains the server side component of Clockwork. Check out on the Clockwork website for details. Installation Install the Clockwork library via Composer. Congratulations, you are done! To enable more features like commands or queue jobs profiling, publish…
read the full clockwork overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or clockwork more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and clockwork has 5,946. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and clockwork free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and clockwork under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and clockwork?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and clockwork in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Apache SkyWalking or clockwork?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose clockwork if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.