head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs resilience4j
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. resilience4j has 10,800 stars, 1,538 forks, 306 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 131% (24,988 vs 10,800 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; resilience4j is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, resilience4j 14%. 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 (metrics), 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 | resilience4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 resilience4j if
- You want the resilience4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and resilience4j 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 resilience4j
= Fault tolerance library designed for functional programming :author: Robert Winkler and Bohdan Storozhuk :icons: :toc: macro :numbered: 1 ifdef::env github[] :tip caption: :bulb: :note caption: :information source: :important caption: :heavy exclamation mark: :caution caption: :fire: :warning caption: :warning: endif::[] image: Status"] image: image: image: License 2", link=" image: link=" image: link=" image: link=" image: link=" image: link=" image: link=" image: toc::[] == Introduction Resilience4j is a lightweight fault tolerance library designed for functional programming. Resilience4j provides higher…
read the full resilience4j overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or resilience4j more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and resilience4j has 10,800. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and resilience4j free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and resilience4j under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and resilience4j?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and resilience4j in Java. 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 resilience4j?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose resilience4j if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.