Jaeger vs OpenZipkin
Jaeger
jaegertracing.io
OpenZipkin
zipkin.ioSide by side
| Figure | Jaeger | OpenZipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Distributed Tracing Tools | 8.0 (#11) | 7.4 (#24) |
| Spec score · Monitoring Observability | 8.1 (#12) | 7.3 (#20) |
| Spec score · Distributed Systems | 8.0 (#14) | 7.3 (#24) |
| Deployment | Jaeger v2 is available as executable binaries and container images, and the all-in-one setup runs collector and query components in one process with transient in-memory storage. | The quickstart describes running Zipkin with Docker, Java, Homebrew, or from source. |
| Purpose | Jaeger is an open-source distributed tracing platform for monitoring and troubleshooting workflows in complex distributed systems. | Zipkin collects and looks up tracing data to help troubleshoot latency in service architectures. |
Plans
In their own words
Jaeger
Jaeger is a free, open-source distributed tracing platform for monitoring complex systems and investigating performance problems. It helps teams locate bottlenecks, examine root causes, and map dependencies between services. Jaeger receives OpenTelemetry Protocol data and accepts Zipkin spans over HTTP in Thrift, JSON v1/v2, and Protobuf formats. Its UI includes System Architecture and Deep Dependency Graph views, while Service Performance Monitoring turns traces into aggregate metrics and time-series charts. Sampling supports head-based configurations, including centralized static or adaptive settings, and tail-based sampling. Cassandra, Elasticsearch, and OpenSearch are supported distributed storage backends; ClickHouse is experimental behind a feature gate. Jaeger v2 ships as binaries and container images, with an all-in-one mode using transient in-memory storage. It is self-hosted, so infrastructure determines capacity and scale. Jaeger v1 reached end of life on December 31, 2025.