head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs effect
Apache SkyWalking has 24,984 GitHub stars, 6,630 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. effect has 17,464 stars, 892 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 43% (24,984 vs 17,464 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; effect is written in TypeScript under MIT. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, effect 5%. effect was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | effect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 892 |
| 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 effect if
- You want the effect feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and effect 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 effect
Effect Effect is a library for building robust, maintainable, type safe, and production grade applications in TypeScript. It helps you handle the hard problems at scale: typed errors, dependency injection, structured concurrency, scheduling, tracing, and unified schema validation. Effect V4 is currently a release candidate. The main branch contains v4 development. Install V4 RC Requirements TypeScript 5.9 or newer. TypeScript 7 is recommended for the best performance and compatibility with Effect's TypeScript tooling. Node.js 18 or newer is the general minimum for running Effect on Node.js. Some integration…
read the full effect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or effect more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,984 GitHub stars and effect has 17,464. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and effect free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and effect under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and effect?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and effect in TypeScript. 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 effect?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,984 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose effect if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.