Caretta vs DeepFlow

Caretta is a free, self-hosted Kubernetes tool from groundcover that creates a visual map of services and their network interactions. It uses eBPF for collection and is designed for Linux systems with kernel 4.16 or later and CO-RE support. The project describes a minimal footprint and says no cluster modifications are required. Installation is documented through a Helm chart, with a recommendation to use a new, unique namespace. The chart includes Grafana with a predefined Caretta dashboard and VictoriaMetrics for collecting and publishing metrics that Prometheus-compatible dashboards can consume. Both bundled services are enabled by default, as is a five-second metrics polling interval, while Helm values can disable either component. Persistent storage for VictoriaMetrics starts disabled but can be enabled. Grafana’s default setup enables anonymous mode and includes administrator credentials in the README. Caretta is self-hosted, Apache-2.0 licensed, and support is directed through Slack or repository issues.

DeepFlow is an observability product for cloud infrastructure and cloud-native applications. It uses eBPF to collect application performance metrics, distributed traces, and continuous profiling data without intrusion. Its core capabilities include a universal service map, distributed tracing, and profiling. Built-in parsing covers HTTP, HTTPS, Dubbo, gRPC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kafka, MQTT, and DNS. DeepFlow can serve as storage for Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, SkyWalking, and Pyroscope, and offers SQL, PromQL, and OTLP interfaces. AutoTagging links observability data with cloud and Kubernetes resources, tags, and CMDB business tags. The Community Edition is open source under Apache 2.0 and is listed at free. It supports Linux servers and selected Kubernetes, cloud, and container environments; deployment guidance covers Kubernetes and Docker Compose. Enterprise Edition adds encrypted agent-to-server transmission, multi-tenancy, and data permission isolation. The listed platforms include Android, API, Linux, self-hosted, web, and Windows.