head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs parca
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. parca has 5,006 stars, 271 forks, 206 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 399% (24,988 vs 5,006 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; parca is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, parca 5%. parca was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ebpf, 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 | parca | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 271 |
| 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 parca if
- You want the parca feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and parca 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 parca
Continuous profiling for analysis of CPU, memory usage over time, and down to the line number. Saving infrastructure cost, improving performance, and increasing reliability. Features eBPF Profiler : A single profiler, using eBPF, automatically discovering targets from Kubernetes or systemd across the entire infrastructure with very low overhead. Supports C, C++, Rust, Go, and more! Open Standards : Both producing pprof formatted profiles with the eBPF based profiler, and ingesting any pprof formatted profiles allowing for wide language adoption and interoperability with existing tooling. Optimized Storage &…
read the full parca overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or parca more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and parca has 5,006. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and parca free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and parca under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and parca?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and parca 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 parca?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose parca if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.