AWS X-Ray vs Tracetest
AWS X-Ray
aws.amazon.comTracetest
tracetest.ioSide by side
| Figure | AWS X-Ray | Tracetest |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 1 |
| Spec score · Distributed Tracing Tools | 9.0 (#2) | 7.8 (#18) |
| Purpose | AWS X-Ray collects data about application requests and provides tools to view, filter, and analyze it to identify issues and optimization opportunities. | Tracetest uses OpenTelemetry and distributed traces for testing and synthetic monitoring. |
| Self-hosting | The daemon can run locally, on premises or on other AWS services, while uploading segments to the hosted X-Ray service. | The download page provides a server installation command, and the open-source version remains available. |
| What it does | AWS X-Ray collects request traces and lets teams inspect downstream AWS resources, microservices, databases and web APIs to find performance and error causes. | Tracetest is an open-source trace-based testing tool for integration and end-to-end tests using OpenTelemetry traces. |
Plans
In their own words
AWS X-Ray
AWS X-Ray is a cloud service for collecting and examining application request traces. A trace can show request and response details alongside calls to downstream AWS resources, microservices, databases and web APIs. X-Ray also uses trace data to map clients, front-end services and backend services, helping identify bottlenecks and latency spikes.
Applications can send traces through X-Ray SDKs or APIs, AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry, or CloudWatch Application Signals. AWS integrations can add tracing headers, transmit data, run the daemon or instrument requests. For Lambda, the daemon can record invocation details, while the SDK can trace outgoing calls and add annotations and metadata. The SDK samples requests by default, with configurable sampling rules. Trace data is retained for 30 days and encrypted at rest; AWS Identity and Access Management controls access. X-Ray has a free allowance of 100,000 traces recorded and the first 1,000,000 traces retrieved or scanned per month; additional usage is billed by usage. Beginning February 25, 2026, AWS limits X-Ray SDK and daemon releases to security fixes and recommends migration to OpenTelemetry.
Tracetest
Tracetest is an open-source tool for integration and end-to-end testing that uses OpenTelemetry traces. Tests can check service responses, trace information, span timing, and side effects in distributed systems. You can reuse Cypress, k6, Playwright, or Postman tests, or trigger tests through HTTP, gRPC, and Kafka. Trace views can identify instrumentation problems, missing attributes, naming inconsistencies, and possible exposure of sensitive data such as passwords or API keys. The Tracetest CLI runs tests in CI/CD pipelines, with YAML definitions suited to source control. Test suites can also operate as scheduled synthetic monitors and send webhook alerts. Listed integrations include Datadog, Grafana Tempo, Jaeger, Honeycomb, GitHub Actions, Cypress, Playwright, and k6. Tracetest Core runs as a Docker container for local environments and is described as unsuitable for production. The open-source version remains available for free after commercial Cloud and Enterprise offerings ended.