head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs nerdlog
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nerdlog has 1,588 stars, 41 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 1,474% (24,988 vs 1,588 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; nerdlog is written in Go under BSD-2-Clause. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, nerdlog 3%. 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 | nerdlog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 41 |
| 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 nerdlog if
- You want the nerdlog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and nerdlog 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 nerdlog
Nerdlog Nerdlog is a fast, remote first, multi host TUI log viewer with timeline histogram and no central server. Loosely inspired by Graylog/Kibana, but without the bloat. Pretty much no setup needed, either. It's laser focused on being efficient while querying logs from multiple remote machines simultaneously, filtering them by time range and patterns, while also drawing an interactive timeline histogram for quick visual insight. Primary use case: reading system logs (from the files /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog , or straight from journalctl ) from one or more remote hosts. Very efficient even on large…
read the full nerdlog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or nerdlog more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and nerdlog has 1,588. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and nerdlog free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nerdlog under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and nerdlog?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and nerdlog 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 nerdlog?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nerdlog if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.