Apache SkyWalking
Apache SkyWalking is an open-source APM (Application Performance Monitoring) system that provides monitoring, tracing, and diagnosing capabilities for distributed systems in cloud native architectures. It supports auto-instrumentation for Java, .NET, Python, Go, Node.js, PHP, and Ruby, offering distributed tracing, metrics collection, log aggregation, and continuous profiling through a unified observability platform governed by the Apache Software Foundation.
APIs
Apache SkyWalking GraphQL Query API
The SkyWalking GraphQL Query API provides a comprehensive query interface for retrieving observability data including traces, metrics, logs, alarms, topology maps, and profiling...
Apache SkyWalking REST API
The SkyWalking HTTP REST API exposes endpoints on port 12800 for health checks, PromQL-compatible metrics queries (Prometheus Query Language), LogQL log queries, and dynamic con...
Apache SkyWalking gRPC Data Collect Protocol
The SkyWalking data collection protocol defines gRPC service definitions for telemetry data ingestion from language agents and service mesh proxies. It covers trace data (v3), J...
Features
Auto-instrumented distributed tracing across 10+ languages with trace correlation and cross-service propagation.
Service, instance, and endpoint metrics with SkyWalking Metrics Query Expression (MQE) engine.
Centralized log collection and search with LAL (Log Analysis Language) rules.
Automatic service dependency mapping and topology visualization.
Rule-based alerting on metrics thresholds with webhook and notification integrations.
CPU, memory, and network profiling via async-profiler, pprof, and eBPF.
Out-of-process network performance profiling using eBPF without code instrumentation.
Prometheus Query Language API for Grafana and other Prometheus-compatible tools.
Native observability database optimized for time-series and trace data storage.
Hierarchical service model supporting mesh, Kubernetes, APISIX gateway, and custom layers.
Use Cases
End-to-end monitoring and tracing for microservices architectures in Kubernetes.
Integration with Istio and other service meshes for traffic and performance monitoring.
Trace-based root cause analysis for distributed system failures and latency issues.
Service level agreement monitoring with metrics dashboards and alerting.
Always-on profiling for performance optimization without overhead in production.
Integrations
Native Kubernetes monitoring via skywalking-kubernetes Helm charts and event integration.
PromQL-compatible metrics API enables native Grafana dashboard integration.
Service mesh telemetry collection from Istio-managed service traffic.
API Gateway integration for monitoring API traffic through Apache APISIX.
Elasticsearch and OpenSearch backend storage for trace and log data.
Native high-performance observability database built for SkyWalking.
Kafka-based data pipeline for high-throughput telemetry ingestion.
OpenTelemetry receiver for ingesting OTLP traces, metrics, and logs.