head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs cost-xray
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. cost-xray has 5,814 stars, 375 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 330% (24,988 vs 5,814 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; cost-xray is written in Python under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, cost-xray 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 (observability), 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 | cost-xray | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 375 |
| 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 cost-xray if
- You want the cost-xray feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and cost-xray 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 cost-xray
cost xray See what your AI coding agent actually sends to the API — and what each part costs. Most usage tools read local logs. That shows the total cost of a call or session, but it misses the request time context assembled before the model is invoked: system prompts, tool schemas, MCP blocks, tool results, cache reads/writes, and previous thinking blocks. cost xray captures the actual local API traffic for Claude Code and Codex, then attributes tokens and dollars back to the sources inside the request. It shows not just how much a turn cost, but why it cost that much. Home — every session by agent · project ·…
read the full cost-xray overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or cost-xray more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and cost-xray has 5,814. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and cost-xray free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cost-xray under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and cost-xray?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and cost-xray in Python. 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 cost-xray?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cost-xray if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.