Detailed comparison across 10 dimensions
Winner: Grafana Tempo
Grafana Tempo clearly comes out ahead of Apache SkyWalking on Staquest's weighted six-dimension score. Both offer a free tier.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | hybrid | hybrid |
| Company | Apache Software Foundation | Grafana Labs |
| Free Tier | ||
| Has API | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Learning Curve | - | - |
| Integration | - | - |
| Trending | Stable | Stable |
| GitHub Stars | - | - |
| Industries | DevelopmentSaaS & Cloud | Development |
| Categories | observability-apm | observability-apm |
| Website | Visit | Visit |
Grafana Tempo
open source
open source
freemium
usage based
custom
| Feature | apache-skywalking | grafana-tempo |
|---|---|---|
| Customizable Ui | ||
| 10K Active Series Metrics | ||
| Distributed Tracing | ||
| 14-Day Retention | ||
| Log Management | ||
| 3 Active Users | ||
| Metrics Collection | ||
| 50Gb Logs | ||
| Multi-Language Agents | ||
| 50Gb Traces | ||
| Service Topology Analysis | ||
| 8X5 Email Support | ||
| 99.5% Uptime Sla | ||
| Advanced Security Features (Saml, Ldap) | ||
| Compatible With Jaeger, Zipkin, And Opentelemetry | ||
| Compliance Adherence (E.G., Federal Cloud) | ||
| Custom Retention | ||
| Dedicated Support | ||
| Deep Integration With Grafana, Prometheus, And Loki | ||
| High-Scale Distributed Tracing Backend | ||
| Object Storage Dependency | ||
| Pay-As-You-Go Usage | ||
| Traces: ~$0.50 Per Gb Ingested |
Showing 23 of 23 features
Dashes mean the feature isn't listed in our data. The tool may still support it.
On Staquest's weighted six-dimension scoring, Grafana Tempo comes out ahead overall, though Apache SkyWalking can be the better fit depending on your priorities — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown above.
Both Apache SkyWalking and Grafana Tempo offer a free tier.
