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Amazon CloudWatch vs Apache SkyWalking comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
25th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (21st), Cloud Monitoring Software (15th)
Apache SkyWalking
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.0%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Apache SkyWalking is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Apache SkyWalking0.6%
Amazon CloudWatch1.0%
Other98.4%
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Azam S M - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC
Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.
reviewer2784462 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Tracing has revealed hybrid bottlenecks and delivers full visibility into critical payment flows
Apache SkyWalking provided full visibility into the black hole because before using it, we could not see what was happening when a request left Amazon EKS and went to our on-premises legacy databases. Apache SkyWalking's distributed tracing correlates these two worlds in a single view, showing us that 40% of the latency was actually happening in the network hop between the cloud and the physical data center, not in the code itself. Second, it exposes hidden architectural flaws. By using the automatic dependency mapping, we discovered that some microservices were stuck in a cyclic dependency which was documented nowhere. This visual evidence allowed us to refactor the logic and immediately increased our throughput by 30%. Apache SkyWalking gave us database-level insight without database access. Through its slow query monitoring, the Java agents captured the exact SQL statements that were hanging during peak sales hours. This meant our developers could fix the exact line of code or index without needing to wait for a DBA to pull logs, reducing our mean time to resolution. There are many features that are useful to mention in this case because we obtained different benefits. Apache SkyWalking automatically drew the topology of the 600 pods where we discovered cyclic dependencies between services that no one had documented before and that were slowing down the system. Another valuable feature is resolving hybrid bottlenecks because we isolated a specific network issue between AWS and the physical data center. Without distributed tracing, infrastructure teams blame Java code and vice versa. Database tuning is also important because thanks to slow query metrics captured by the agent, we identified and rewrote the SQL queries that most impacted performance during sales peaks.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"What my company likes best about Amazon CloudWatch is that it's on AWS. My team also likes it for its log feature. As the solution is on AWS, it also has good pricing and resource availability, plus it's what clients choose. My company also chose AWS for Forge ECS, and at the time, there was a need for the log features provided by Amazon CloudWatch, so it's the solution my team went with."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap and easy-to-use solution."
"CloudWatch immediately hooks up and connects to the KPIs and all the metrics."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon CloudWatch is the monitoring and UI."
"Amazon CloudWatch has a user-friendly interface."
"The solution effectively monitors golden signals like CPU, page requests, and queues."
"CloudWatch provides essential monitoring capabilities that integrate seamlessly with other AWS services."
"Task automation through Amazon CloudWatch has improved the company's overall efficiency in terms of the time to resolve issues, so the tool has been beneficial."
"Apache SkyWalking has positively impacted my organization by reducing the time of the team so that they can put in more efforts into their other tasks, saving a lot of time, improving our SLA in resolving any issue, providing good RCA analysis to the leadership team, and helping us in monitoring the entire health in a shorter time span."
"Using Apache SkyWalking has had a positive impact on my organization because it has enabled us to identify the causes of various problems more quickly."
"Apache SkyWalking has enabled me to save considerable money because I can monitor multiple applications simultaneously in the same environment without deploying multiple solutions, while optimizing application performance and boosting system health through increased visibility."
"Apache SkyWalking has significantly improved application visibility and reduced troubleshooting times while enhancing security reliability."
"Apache SkyWalking is a very nice tool and an exceptional tool for managing volume and complex architecture on AWS without the prohibitive cost of commercial suites."
"Apache SkyWalking has impacted my organization positively."
 

Cons

"Even though the product works well with most AWS, it is a nightmare to use with Snowflake."
"There is room for improvement in terms of stability."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing, because they have a premium version, but it's not really a premium version. It's just an enhanced monitoring version, and it can be a bit expensive depending on your usage."
"The solution's auto-scaling could be improved."
"I think something that can be improved are the alerts and alerting mechanism based on no rejects. We want to have it more flexible and that is one of the key things that is required."
"The solution's integration could be easier for laypersons."
"Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool."
"The solution's pricing is a bit higher."
"Apache SkyWalking can be improved by enhancing a few things. The learning curve is definitely there, so it needs a good learning curve."
"Apache SkyWalking can be improved by responding more quickly to new versions of monitored products."
"Areas for improvement include simplified initial deployment and configurations, better documentation for advanced use cases, and more built-in dashboards and reports."
"Apache SkyWalking can be improved with storage management complexity because with this volume of 50 million traces a day, managing data retention on OpenSearch is critical."
"For AI and compliance, I would rate it a two, but for operation monitoring and security, I would rate it a five."
"Right now, I don't think it is stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Amazon CloudWatch is reasonable. When the rate of data collection is done the price will increase. The price is less than other solutions."
"The pricing can be considered reasonable, especially when already operating on a cloud platform."
"The pricing model is pay-as-you-go so you have to be mindful of usage to manage costs."
"Amazon CloudWatch is a cheap solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"The tool is not expensive."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"I consider it as a medium-priced solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Transportation Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visual...
What is your primary use case for Amazon CloudWatch?
Amazon CloudWatch is a very small service that AWS provides. It is a monitoring service for applications within the AWS cloud, and we can integrate external applications using the APIs or SDK. The ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apache SkyWalking?
It is fine regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Apache SkyWalking?
Features are good, but there is something about the UI, which I would suggest. There is space to enhance it and make it look less pointy from the edges and not like an old UI. There is a space wher...
What is your primary use case for Apache SkyWalking?
We have running Kubernetes clusters as well as the database and other servers with the main use case for Apache SkyWalking being the need for monitoring metrics and traces, and the slow endpoints o...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus
1. Alibaba 2. Amazon 3. Apple 4. Baidu 5. ByteDance 6. Cisco 7. Dell 8. Google 9. Huawei 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JPMorgan Chase 13. Klarna 14. LinkedIn 15. Microsoft 16. Netflix 17. Oracle 18. PayPal 19. Pinterest 20. Qualcomm 21. SAP 22. Samsung 23. Spotify 24. Tencent 25. Twitter 26. Uber 27. VMware 28. WeChat 29. Xiaomi 30. Zoom
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon CloudWatch vs. Apache SkyWalking and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.