head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs frostmourne
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. frostmourne has 1,496 stars, 318 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 1,570% (24,988 vs 1,496 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; frostmourne is written in Java under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, frostmourne 21%. 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 | frostmourne | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-04-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 318 |
| 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 frostmourne if
- You want the frostmourne feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and frostmourne 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 frostmourne
Github地址 Gitee地址 中文 English 📖 介绍 Frostmourne (霜之哀伤)是汽车之家经销商技术部监控系统的开源版本，用于帮助监控几乎所有数据库数据(包括 Elasticsearch , Prometheus , SkyWalking , MySql 等等)。如果你已经建立起了日志系统， 指标体系，却苦恼于没有一个配套监控系统，也许它能帮到你。使用本系统得当，至少可以做到线上应用出了什么问题，相关开发能第一时间了解报错情况，知道问题出在哪里， 可以快速响应处理，几乎先于所有人知道线上的情况，也因为心中有数所以可以从容应对各种问询，一点都不慌，你们团队值得拥有。 项目初衷 在用 ELK 建立起日志系统之后，我们发现应用日志监控这块除了 ElastAlert 之外，没有其他方案。我们初期使用 ElastAlert 来解决日志监控的问题， 但是随着配置的增加，不仅管理成本和使用成本较高，稳定性方面也不能让我们满意，所以为了更好的易用性，稳定性，我们决定自己做一套简单的监控系统， 来解决日志监控的问题。 项目并不局限于 Elasticsearch 数据，还支持 HTTP , PING , Telnet 监控， Prometheus , SkyWalking , InfluxDB ， MySQL , ClickHouse , IoTDB , SqlServer 数据监控，…
read the full frostmourne overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or frostmourne more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and frostmourne has 1,496. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and frostmourne free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and frostmourne under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and frostmourne?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and frostmourne in Java. 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 frostmourne?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose frostmourne if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.