SkyWalking
GraalVM Native Image Distribution
Apache SkyWalking provides an alternative distribution built with GraalVM native image, delivered as a self-contained binary with faster startup and lower memory footprint.
Why Choose the GraalVM Distro
| Aspect | Standard OAP (JVM) | GraalVM Distro |
|---|---|---|
| Startup | Seconds to minutes | Instant |
| Memory | 1 GB+ heap typical | ~512 MB |
| Artifact | JARs + JVM required | ~203 MB single binary |
| Storage backends | BanyanDB, Elasticsearch, MySQL, PostgreSQL | BanyanDB only |
| Module set | Dynamically loaded via SPI | Fixed at build time |
| DSL rules (OAL, MAL, LAL, Hierarchy) | Compiled at startup | Pre-compiled at build time |
Benchmark results on JVM class initialization and runtime resource usage (Apple M3 Max, BanyanDB backend, 20 RPS sustained load):
| Metric | Standard OAP (JVM) | GraalVM Distro | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold boot | 635 ms | 5 ms | ~127x faster |
| Memory (idle) | ~1.2 GiB | ~41 MiB | 97% reduction |
| Memory (20 RPS) | 2,068 MiB | 629 MiB | 70% reduction |
| CPU (median, 20 RPS) | 101 millicores | 68 millicores | 33% reduction |
| Throughput | Baseline | Identical | No difference |
See the full benchmark blog post for details.
The GraalVM distro is a good fit when you want:
- Container-friendly deployments with minimal image size and instant readiness.
- Lower resource usage for small-to-medium scale environments.
- BanyanDB as your storage backend, which is already the recommended default.
Limitations
- BanyanDB is the sole supported storage backend. Elasticsearch, MySQL, and PostgreSQL are not available.
- Modules are selected at build time. Runtime SPI discovery is not supported.
- DSL rules are pre-compiled at build time. Dynamic rule changes require rebuilding the binary.
All existing SkyWalking agents, UI, and CLI tools remain fully compatible.
Download
Pre-built binaries are available for Linux (AMD64/ARM64) and macOS (ARM64) on the SkyWalking Downloads page.
Docker images are available on Docker Hub as apache/skywalking-graalvm-distro.
Version Mapping
Each GraalVM distro release corresponds to a specific SkyWalking OAP version. See the version mapping table for the exact correspondence.
Documentation
For setup instructions, configuration details, and the full documentation, refer to the SkyWalking GraalVM Distro documentation.