Side by side
groundcover vs Skylight
Both stand on application performance monitoring. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Free plan LinuxSelf-hostedWeb
groundcover combines eBPF-based telemetry collection with cloud and on-premises deployment options. Compare the retention, support, and per-host plan details with your monitoring needs.
Visit groundcover Free plan APILinuxMac+1
Pick Skylight if you run a Ruby or Rails application and want endpoint, query, deployment, and background job performance analysis. The monthly free trace allowance and 30-day trial offer ways to begin. Teams that need real user monitoring should look elsewhere, as Skylight does not provide it.
Visit SkylightThe facts
| groundcover | Skylight | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Not published | Not published |
| Runs on | Linux, Self-hosted, Web | API, Linux, Mac, Web |
| Lowest paid plan | Pro: $30 per host a month | Paid tiers: $20 a month |
| Plans published | 4 | 3 |
| Maker | groundcover | Not published |
| Website | groundcover.com | skylight.io |
| On application performance monitoring | #12 of 37 | #16 of 37 |
groundcover: what it does well
- Collects metrics, logs, and traces without instrumentation.
- Ingests data in real time without sampling.
- Offers Bring Your Own Cloud and Fully On-Prem.
- Includes a free plan with 12-hour retention.
- Supports listed integrations including Kubernetes and Prometheus.
What to know first
- Free plan has 12-hour data retention.
- Free plan support is via Slack Community.
- Pro costs $30 a month per host.
- Pricing is based on monitored hosts, not telemetry volume.
Skylight: what it does well
- Includes 100,000 free traces per month for every account.
- Ranks endpoints using popularity and response time.
- Tracks deployments alongside performance data.
- Analyzes Sidekiq, DelayedJob, and ActiveJob workloads.
- Groups GraphQL queries by name.
What to know first
- Paid tiers start at $20 a month.
- Paid billing is based on monthly trace volume across apps.
- Free public reporting for open-source apps requires approval.
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