head to head · open source
Grafana vs skywalking-java
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars, 14,905 forks, 3,326 open issues and last shipped yesterday. skywalking-java has 928 stars, 694 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Grafana leads on adoption by 8,266% (77,638 vs 928 stars). Grafana is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; skywalking-java is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Grafana has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, skywalking-java 75%. Grafana 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
| Grafana | skywalking-java | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 78K | ★ 928 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 15K | ⑂ 694 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Grafana if
- You weight community size — 78K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick skywalking-java if
- You want the skywalking-java feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and skywalking-java fits your workflow better
About Grafana
The open source platform for monitoring and observability Grafana allows you to query, visualize, alert on and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data driven culture: Visualizations: Fast and flexible client side graphs with a multitude of options. Panel plugins offer many different ways to visualize metrics and logs. Dynamic Dashboards: Create dynamic & reusable dashboards with template variables that appear as dropdowns at the top of the dashboard. Explore Metrics: Explore your data through ad hoc queries and dynamic…
read the full Grafana overview →
About skywalking-java
Apache SkyWalking Java Agent ========== SkyWalking Java: The Java Agent for Apache SkyWalking, which provides the native tracing/metrics/logging abilities for Java projects. SkyWalking: an APM(application performance monitor) system, especially designed for microservices, cloud native and container based (Docker and Kubernetes) architectures. Documentation Official documentation Downloads Please head to the releases page to download a release of Apache SkyWalking. Code of conduct This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please…
read the full skywalking-java overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana or skywalking-java more popular?
Grafana has 77,638 GitHub stars and skywalking-java has 928. Grafana has the larger community by that measure.
Are Grafana and skywalking-java free?
Both are open source. Grafana is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and skywalking-java under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Grafana and skywalking-java?
Grafana is written in TypeScript and skywalking-java in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Grafana or skywalking-java?
Choose Grafana if you want the larger community (77,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose skywalking-java if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.