head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs plog
Apache SkyWalking has 24,991 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plog has 2,597 stars, 407 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 862% (24,991 vs 2,597 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; plog is written in C++ under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, plog 16%. 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 | plog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 407 |
| 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 plog if
- You want the plog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and plog 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 plog
Plog portable, simple and extensible C++ logging library Pretty powerful logging library in about 1000 lines of code Introduction Hello log! Features Integration Copy the source Git submodule CMake integration add subdirectory FetchContent Package managers Usage Step 1: Adding includes Step 2: Initialization RollingFileInitializer ConsoleInitializer Manual initialization (Init.h) Step 3: Logging Basic logging macros Conditional logging macros Logger severity checker Advanced usage Changing severity at runtime Custom initialization Multiple appenders Multiple loggers Share log instances across modules (exe, dll…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or plog more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,991 GitHub stars and plog has 2,597. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and plog free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and plog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and plog?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and plog in C++. 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 plog?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,991 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose plog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.