head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs debug
Apache SkyWalking has 24,991 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. debug has 11,456 stars, 996 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 118% (24,991 vs 11,456 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; debug is written in JavaScript under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, debug 9%. 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 | debug | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 996 |
| 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 debug if
- You want the debug feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and debug 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 debug
debug A tiny JavaScript debugging utility modelled after Node.js core's debugging technique. Works in Node.js and web browsers. Installation Usage debug exposes a function; simply pass this function the name of your module, and it will return a decorated version of console.error for you to pass debug statements to. This will allow you to toggle the debug output for different parts of your module as well as the module as a whole. Example app.js : Example worker.js : The DEBUG environment variable is then used to enable these based on space or comma delimited names. Here are some examples: Windows command prompt…
read the full debug overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or debug more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,991 GitHub stars and debug has 11,456. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and debug free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and debug under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and debug?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and debug in JavaScript. 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 debug?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,991 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose debug if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.