Apache SkyWalking vs Grafana Cloud Traces
Apache SkyWalking
skywalking.apache.orgGrafana Cloud Traces
grafana.comSide by side
| Figure | Apache SkyWalking | Grafana Cloud Traces |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Distributed Tracing Tools | 8.4 (#7) | 7.8 (#15) |
| Purpose | Apache SkyWalking is an observability platform for cloud-native systems and AI workloads. | Grafana Cloud Traces is a fully managed distributed tracing backend for searching traces, generating metrics from spans, and linking tracing data with logs and metrics. |
| Storage | BanyanDB is described as an observability database for ingesting, analyzing, and storing metrics, tracing, and logging data. | It uses object storage and a columnar trace storage format based on Apache Parquet. |
| Support | The project directs users to GitHub discussions for questions and issues and provides a developer mailing list and Slack community contact instructions. | The Free tier includes community support, Pro includes 8×5 email support, and Enterprise offers premium support. |
Plans
Grafana Cloud Traces
- FreeFree
- EnterprisePriced on request
- ProPrice not published
In their own words
Apache SkyWalking
Apache SkyWalking is a free, self-hosted observability platform for cloud-native systems and AI workloads. It brings traces, metrics, logs, and profiling together to help users explore services, Kubernetes, and infrastructure through topology, telemetry, profiles, and alerts. For AI workloads, users can inspect model and MCP call latency and token rates, and review agent conversations, tool calls, and recorded file changes. The project lists agents for Java, Python, NodeJS, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Nginx LUA, Kong, and client-side JavaScript. Its integrations and ecosystem include OpenTelemetry OTLP, Istio, Envoy, Kubernetes, Grafana, and MCP. BanyanDB is described as a database for ingesting, analyzing, and storing observability data. Docker installation instructions cover Linux, macOS, WSL, and Windows PowerShell. Horizon UI supports SkyWalking natively since v11 and partially for v10. Its security documentation covers Content-Security-Policy, strict session cookies, no-store API responses, and optional login auditing. Apache source releases are official artifacts, with PGP or SHA512 verification recommended; the GraalVM distribution is marked experimental.
Grafana Cloud Traces
Grafana Cloud Traces has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.