head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs jaeger
Apache SkyWalking has 24,984 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger has 23,366 stars, 3,220 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 7% (24,984 vs 23,366 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, jaeger 14%. jaeger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (distributed-tracing, 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 | jaeger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 3.2K |
| 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 jaeger if
- You want the jaeger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and jaeger 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 jaeger
[![Slack chat][slack img]]( get in touch) [![Unit Tests][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][cov img]][cov] [![Project+Community stats][community badge]][community stats] [![FOSSA Status][fossa img]][fossa] [![OpenSSF Scorecard][openssf img]][openssf] [![OpenSSF Best Practices][openssf bp img]][openssf bp] [![CLOMonitor][clomonitor img]][clomonitor] [![Artifact Hub][artifacthub img]][artifacthub] Jaeger a Distributed Tracing System 💥💥💥 Jaeger v2 is out! Read the blog post and try it out. Quick Start Get Jaeger running in seconds with Docker: For production deployments and more options, see the Getting Started…
read the full jaeger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or jaeger more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,984 GitHub stars and jaeger has 23,366. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and jaeger free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and jaeger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and jaeger?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and jaeger in Go. 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 jaeger?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,984 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose jaeger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.