# Apache SkyWalking vs Glowroot

| Attribute | Apache SkyWalking | Glowroot |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 53.3 (54% (medium)) | 52.6 (53% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 20 | 27 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 106 | 13 |
| adoption.github_stars | 24,930 | 1,355 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An open-source observability platform combining distributed tracing, metrics, logs, and profiling in one interface. Provides automatic instrumentation across 10+ languages, interactive service topology visualization, database monitoring, and an AI assistant for answering observability questions in natural language. | Glowroot is a Java application performance monitoring (APM) tool that captures request traces, provides continuous profiling, response time analysis, and database monitoring with extensive library and framework instrumentation. |
| features.capabilities | `{"rum":true,"hosting":"both","languages":"10+ language agents supported","service_map":true,"otel_support":"ingest","db_monitoring":true,"code_profiling":true,"error_analytics":true,"anomaly_detection":true,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` | `{"hosting":"self","languages":"Java","otel_support":"none","db_monitoring":true,"code_profiling":true,"error_analytics":true,"distributed_tracing":true,"auto_instrumentation":true}` |
| integrations.count | 14 | 50 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Apache APISIX"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry Collector"},{"name":"Amazon Bedrock"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"WeChat Mini Program"},{"name":"Alipay Mini Program"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Envoy"},{"name":"DeepSeek"},{"name":"Claude Sonnet"}]` | `[{"name":"Apache Camel"},{"name":"Cassandra"},{"name":"EJB"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Grails"},{"name":"Hibernate"},{"name":"Apache HttpClient"},{"name":"Apache HttpAsyncClient"},{"name":"AsyncHttpClient"},{"name":"OkHttp"},{"name":"JavaMail"},{"name":"JAX-RS"},{"name":"JAX-WS"},{"name":"JDBC"},{"name":"JMS"},{"name":"JSF"},{"name":"JSP"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"JUL"},{"name":"Log4j"},{"name":"Logback"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"Netty"},{"name":"Play Framework"},{"name":"Quartz Scheduler"},{"name":"Redis"},{"name":"Servlets"},{"name":"Spring Framework"},{"name":"Struts"},{"name":"Vert.x"},{"name":"Tomcat"},{"name":"TomEE"},{"name":"Wildfly"},{"name":"JBoss EAP"},{"name":"Jetty"},{"name":"Glassfish"},{"name":"Payara"},{"name":"WebLogic"},{"name":"WebSphere"}]` |
| language.primary | Java | Java |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://skywalking.apache.org/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T13:41:37.822Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://glowroot.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-03T13:21:59.993Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 89 | 19 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.4.0","date":"2026-04-01T12:51:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.3.0","date":"2025-11-10T11:40:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.2.0","date":"2025-03-24T11:52:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.1.0","date":"2024-09-29T13:30:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.0.1","date":"2024-05-30T03:42:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v10.0.0","date":"2024-05-13T01:02:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v10.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.7.0","date":"2023-12-01T18:19:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.6.0","date":"2023-09-03T14:33:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.5.0","date":"2023-06-18T16:20:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.4.0","date":"2023-03-09T04:01:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.3.0","date":"2022-12-04T03:44:41Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.2.0","date":"2022-09-01T12:54:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.1.0","date":"2022-06-10T03:01:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v9.0.0","date":"2022-04-09T12:13:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v9.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.9.1","date":"2021-12-11T13:57:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.9.0","date":"2021-12-05T07:33:26Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.8.1","date":"2021-10-02T16:39:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.8.0","date":"2021-09-27T09:58:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.7.0","date":"2021-08-02T12:25:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/skywalking/releases/tag/v8.6.0","date":"2021-06-10T04:58:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v8.6.0"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.8-beta.4","date":"2026-08-02T14:53:48Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.8-beta.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.8-beta.3","date":"2026-06-08T12:18:19Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.8-beta.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.8-beta.1","date":"2026-06-08T05:43:46Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.8-beta.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.7","date":"2026-05-11T08:58:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.7-beta.1","date":"2026-04-21T14:29:03Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.7-beta.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.6","date":"2026-03-24T11:20:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.6-beta.4","date":"2026-03-21T20:01:14Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.6-beta.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.6-beta.3","date":"2026-03-15T20:50:22Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.6-beta.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.6-beta.2","date":"2026-03-14T16:45:03Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.6-beta.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.5","date":"2026-03-08T16:38:11Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.5-beta.4","date":"2026-03-02T08:06:11Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.5-beta.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.5-beta.3","date":"2026-02-18T10:56:36Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.5-beta.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.5-beta.2","date":"2025-11-10T09:13:23Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.5-beta.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.5-beta.1","date":"2025-07-18T14:32:30Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.5-beta.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.4","date":"2025-05-25T16:31:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.3-beta.5","date":"2024-09-05T19:57:21Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.3-beta.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.3-beta.4","date":"2024-07-11T20:13:52Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.3-beta.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.2","date":"2024-04-07T14:22:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.14.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.2-beta.5","date":"2024-04-03T14:44:24Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.2-beta.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/glowroot/glowroot/releases/tag/v0.14.2-beta.4","date":"2024-04-01T20:32:53Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v0.14.2-beta.4"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7 | 4.2 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.apache.skywalking%3Azipkin-receiver-plugin&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=org.glowroot%3Aglowroot-agent-api&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (APM Tools)

| Capability | Apache SkyWalking | Glowroot |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Instrumentation** |  |  |
| Auto-instrumentation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Distributed tracing | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Insight** |  |  |
| Service map | ✓ | - |
| Code / continuous profiling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Database monitoring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Error analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real-user monitoring | ✓ | - |
| SLO / error-budget tracking | - | - |
| **Intelligence** |  |  |
| Anomaly / root-cause AI | ✓ | - |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | OTLP ingest | None |
| **Core** |  |  |
| Language agents | 10+ language agents supported | Java |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Self-hosted only |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:42:58.842Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*