Skydive review
A self-hosted mapper for tracing network topology, flows, and paths across cloud-native environments.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Skydive is an open-source network topology and protocol analyzer for teams that need to inspect infrastructure and trace traffic across distributed environments. Agents collect topology and flow information and send it to a central analyzer, with data stored in Elasticsearch. Its focus is specialized: cloud-native and infrastructure teams can use it to follow connections and examine how network components relate, rather than treating it as a general-purpose network management suite.
Topology and traffic-flow history, flow-path tracing, and Gremlin queries give the product several ways to investigate network behavior. Interfaces include a web UI, command line, and REST API. Its distributed agent-and-analyzer architecture is suited to environments spread across hosts or infrastructure layers. Probes cover topology sources such as LLDP, Netlink, OVSDB, Kubernetes, and OVN, and flow sources including sFlow, PCAP, DPDK, eBPF, and Open vSwitch port mirroring. This breadth can help teams working with varied network stacks, though selecting and operating the relevant probes is part of the work.
Skydive is self-hosted and can be installed as a binary, container, or package. Connectors include Kubernetes, Docker, OpenStack, and OpenContrail; integrations also include Istio, Prometheus, and Grafana. It is open source, with community support and documentation listed as support channels. Teams comfortable operating their own infrastructure and looking for topology and flow-level investigation may find its specialized approach a fit. Organizations seeking a managed service or broad, general-purpose network mapping should consider alternatives.
Skydive pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Keeps topology and flow history and supports flow-path tracing
- Offers Gremlin queries plus web, command-line, and REST API access
- Distributed agents support Kubernetes, Docker, OpenStack, and OpenContrail
- Where it doesn't
- Self-hosted deployment calls for infrastructure ownership
- Probe and connector choices may require network-specific configuration
- Community and documentation are the listed support channels
Skydive fact sheet, pricing and score →
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