head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs loglayer
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. loglayer has 550 stars, 11 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 4,443% (24,988 vs 550 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; loglayer is written in TypeScript under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, loglayer 2%. 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 | loglayer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 550 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 11 |
| 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 loglayer if
- You want the loglayer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and loglayer 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 loglayer
LogLayer loglayer is a unified logger that routes logs to various logging libraries, cloud providers, files, and OpenTelemetry while providing a fluent API for specifying log messages, metadata and errors. Supports browser, Node.js, Bun, and Deno platforms. For full documentation, read the docs. Also available for Go! See go.loglayer.dev for the Go version. With the Pretty Terminal Transport: The Wide Events Mixin enables comprehensive, self contained log entries that capture an entire operation's context. For background on the problem this solves, see Why Logging Sucks. Development Setup This is a monorepo…
read the full loglayer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or loglayer more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and loglayer has 550. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and loglayer free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and loglayer under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and loglayer?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and loglayer in TypeScript. 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 loglayer?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose loglayer if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.