Oncall vs Apache SkyWalking

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureOncallApache SkyWalking
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseBSD-2-ClauseApache-2.0
LanguagePythonJava
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM256 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 1,256★ 24,915
First released20172015
ReplacesPagerDutyNew Relic, Datadog

Why pick each one

Choose Oncall if…

  • Simple scheduling model
  • Battle-tested at LinkedIn
Oncall details

Choose Apache SkyWalking if…

  • Full observability suite
  • Strong Apache governance
Apache SkyWalking details

Frequently asked questions

Is Oncall or Apache SkyWalking better?

Neither is universally better. Apache SkyWalking has the larger community, while Oncall is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Oncall and Apache SkyWalking free and open-source?

Yes. Oncall is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Apache SkyWalking under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Oncall and Apache SkyWalking with Docker?

Oncall: yes. Apache SkyWalking: yes.

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