head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs retina
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. retina has 3,185 stars, 308 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 685% (24,988 vs 3,185 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; retina is written in Go under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, retina 10%. retina 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 | retina | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 308 |
| 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 retina if
- You want the retina feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and retina 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 retina
[![goreport][goreport img]][goreport] ![GitHub release][release img] [![retina publish][godoc badge]][godoc] ![license] [![retina test][retina test image badge]][retina test image] [![retinash][retinash badge]][retinash] [![retina publish][retina publish badge]][retina publish] ![retina codeql img][retina codeql badge] ![retina golangci lint img][retina golangci lint badge] Overview Retina is a cloud agnostic, open source Kubernetes network observability platform that provides a centralized hub for monitoring application health, network health, and security . It provides actionable insights to cluster network…
read the full retina overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or retina more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and retina has 3,185. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and retina free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and retina under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and retina?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and retina 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 retina?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose retina if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.