head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs magic-trace
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. magic-trace has 6,346 stars, 223 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 294% (24,988 vs 6,346 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; magic-trace is written in OCaml under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, magic-trace 4%. Apache SkyWalking was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | magic-trace | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 6.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | OCaml |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 223 |
| 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 magic-trace if
- You want the magic-trace feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches OCaml
- You evaluated both and magic-trace 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 magic-trace
magic trace Overview magic trace collects and displays high resolution traces of what a process is doing. People have used it to: figure out why an application running in production handles some requests slowly while simultaneously handling a sea of uninteresting requests, look at what their code is actually doing instead of what they think it's doing, get a history of what their application was doing before it crashed, instead of a mere stacktrace at that final instant, ...and much more! magic trace: has 2% 10% overhead, doesn't require application changes to use, traces every function call with 40ns…
read the full magic-trace overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or magic-trace more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and magic-trace has 6,346. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and magic-trace free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and magic-trace under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and magic-trace?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and magic-trace in OCaml. 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 magic-trace?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose magic-trace if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.