head to head · open source
Apache SkyWalking vs jaeger
Apache SkyWalking has 24,955 GitHub stars, 6,634 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger has 23,217 stars, 3,119 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Apache SkyWalking leads on adoption by 7% (24,955 vs 23,217 stars). Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0; jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Apache SkyWalking has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, jaeger 13%. Apache SkyWalking was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (distributed-tracing, 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 | jaeger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 jaeger if
- You want the jaeger 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 jaeger fits your workflow better
About Apache SkyWalking
Apache SkyWalking is an open source application performance monitoring (APM) system for distributed systems in cloud native architectures, built for teams that run microservices across Kubernetes and container based environments.
read the full Apache SkyWalking overview →
About jaeger
Jaeger is a distributed tracing platform hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where it graduated as the 7th top level project in October 2019. It was originally created by Uber Technologies and then donated to the CNCF. The project is written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the OpenTelemetry and observability ecosystem: it consumes traces from OpenTelemetry SDKs and reuses components from the OpenTelemetry Collector. Its repository carries topics including cncf, distributed tracing, jaeger, observability, opentelemetry and tracing, and the project is openly gove…
read the full jaeger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Apache SkyWalking or jaeger more popular?
Apache SkyWalking has 24,955 GitHub stars and jaeger has 23,217. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community by that measure.
Are Apache SkyWalking and jaeger free?
Both are open source. Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0 and jaeger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Apache SkyWalking and jaeger?
Apache SkyWalking is written in Java and jaeger 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 jaeger?
Choose Apache SkyWalking if you want the larger community (24,955 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose jaeger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.