head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs swift-log
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. swift-log has 4,057 stars, 351 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 516% (24,988 vs 4,057 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; swift-log is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, swift-log 9%. 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 | swift-log | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 351 |
| 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 swift-log if
- You want the swift-log feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-log 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 swift-log
SwiftLog This repository contains a logging API implementation for Swift. SwiftLog provides a unified, performant, and ergonomic logging API that can be adopted by libraries and applications across the Swift ecosystem. 📚 Documentation and tutorials are available on the Swift Package Index 🚀 Contributions are welcome, please see CONTRIBUTING.md 🪪 License is Apache 2.0, repeated in LICENSE.txt 🔒 Security issues should be reported via the process in Security 🔀 Available Logging Backends : SwiftLog is an API package you'll want to choose from the many community maintained logging backends for production use…
read the full swift-log overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or swift-log more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and swift-log has 4,057. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and swift-log free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and swift-log under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and swift-log?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and swift-log in Swift. 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 swift-log?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose swift-log if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.