head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs stern
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. stern has 4,912 stars, 180 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 409% (24,988 vs 4,912 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; stern is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, stern 4%. 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 | stern | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 180 |
| 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 stern if
- You want the stern feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and stern 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 stern
stern Fork of discontinued wercker/stern Stern allows you to tail multiple pods on Kubernetes and multiple containers within the pod. Each result is color coded for quicker debugging. The query is a regular expression or a Kubernetes resource in the form / so the pod name can easily be filtered and you don't need to specify the exact id (for instance omitting the deployment id). If a pod is deleted it gets removed from tail and if a new pod is added it automatically gets tailed. When a pod contains multiple containers Stern can tail all of them too without having to do this manually for each one. Simply specify…
read the full stern overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or stern more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and stern has 4,912. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and stern free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and stern under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and stern?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and stern 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 stern?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose stern if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.