head to head · open source
Grafana Loki vs Apache SkyWalking
Grafana Loki has 28,909 GitHub stars, 4,112 forks, 1,620 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache SkyWalking has 24,955 stars, 6,634 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana Loki leads on adoption by 16% (28,909 vs 24,955 stars). Grafana Loki is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Grafana Loki has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Apache SkyWalking 27%. Grafana Loki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (logging, prometheus), 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
| Grafana Loki | Apache SkyWalking | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 25K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 6.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana Loki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Apache SkyWalking if
- You want the Apache SkyWalking feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and Apache SkyWalking fits your workflow better
About Grafana Loki
Grafana Loki is a log aggregation system designed as the log oriented counterpart to Prometheus. It operates within the cloud native observability ecosystem, specifically targeting Kubernetes and containerized environments. Loki avoids expensive full text indexing by indexing only metadata labels attached to log streams, storing the raw log content in compressed form. This design choice makes Loki significantly simpler to operate and more cost effective than traditional log systems that index every word.
read the full Grafana Loki overview →
About Apache SkyWalking
Apache SkyWalking is an open source application performance monitoring (APM) system for distributed systems in cloud native architectures, built for teams that run microservices across Kubernetes and container based environments.
read the full Apache SkyWalking overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Loki or Apache SkyWalking more popular?
Grafana Loki has 28,909 GitHub stars and Apache SkyWalking has 24,955. Grafana Loki has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana Loki and Apache SkyWalking free?
Both are open source. Grafana Loki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Apache SkyWalking under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana Loki and Apache SkyWalking?
Grafana Loki is written in Go and Apache SkyWalking 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, Grafana Loki or Apache SkyWalking?
Choose Grafana Loki if you want the larger community (28,909 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Apache SkyWalking if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.