head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs yokai
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars, 6,632 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. yokai has 840 stars, 32 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 2,875% (24,988 vs 840 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; yokai is written in Go under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, yokai 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 (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 | yokai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 840 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 32 |
| 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 yokai if
- You want the yokai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and yokai 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 yokai
Yokai Simple, modular, and observable Go framework for backend applications. Goals Documentation Overview Architecture Foundations Extensions Getting started Showroom Contributing Goals Building backend applications with Go is amazing. But to build production grade applications, you need to put in place a bunch of efforts and boilerplate code, introducing complexity not even related to the logic of your application (like dependencies wiring, configuration management, observability instrumentation, etc.). To solve this, Yokai was created with the following goals in mind: Simple : it is easy to use, configure and…
read the full yokai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or yokai more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,988 GitHub stars and yokai has 840. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and yokai free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and yokai under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and yokai?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and yokai 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 yokai?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,988 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose yokai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.