head to head · open source
SigNoz vs Apache SkyWalking
SigNoz has 32,116 GitHub stars, 2,493 forks, 1,557 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache SkyWalking has 24,955 stars, 6,634 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SigNoz leads on adoption by 29% (32,116 vs 24,955 stars). SigNoz is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Apache SkyWalking is written in Java under Apache-2.0. SigNoz has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Apache SkyWalking 27%. SigNoz was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (apm, distributed-tracing, metrics, 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
| SigNoz | Apache SkyWalking | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 25K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 6.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SigNoz if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Apache SkyWalking if
- You want the Apache SkyWalking 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 Apache SkyWalking fits your workflow better
About SigNoz
SigNoz is an open source, OpenTelemetry native observability platform for cloud native applications. It unifies logs, metrics, traces, alerts, and dashboards into a single tool, replacing fragmented monitoring stacks with a correlated signal pipeline. It lives in the observability ecosystem alongside tools like Prometheus, Jaeger, and Grafana, and is positioned as an open alternative to Datadog.
read the full SigNoz overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SigNoz or Apache SkyWalking more popular?
SigNoz has 32,116 GitHub stars and Apache SkyWalking has 24,955. SigNoz has the larger community by that measure.
Are SigNoz and Apache SkyWalking free?
Both are open source. SigNoz has no licence declared in this registry, and Apache SkyWalking is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between SigNoz and Apache SkyWalking?
SigNoz is written in TypeScript and Apache SkyWalking 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, SigNoz or Apache SkyWalking?
Choose SigNoz if you want the larger community (32,116 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Apache SkyWalking if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.