Zipkin
The original open-source distributed tracing system, born at Twitter in 2012. Single-binary simplicity, still maintained.
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Repository | https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin |
| GitHub stars (approx) | 17000 |
| Language | Java |
| Self-host deployment | single jar, docker, kubernetes |
| Commercial hosted option | no / self-host only |
| Freshness status | Fresh |
| Freshness checked | 2026-05-17 |
| Categories | traces |
| Replaces SaaS | datadog, new-relic, honeycomb |
Zipkin is the elder statesman of open-source tracing — predates OpenTelemetry, predates Jaeger, and still ships a single self-contained Java binary that runs anywhere with a JVM. Storage backends include in-memory, MySQL, Cassandra, and Elasticsearch.
Pick it if: you want the simplest possible traces backend to stand up in an afternoon, you have a Java-heavy environment with existing Brave instrumentation, or you’re tracing a small/medium system where Jaeger’s operator and storage flexibility are overkill.
Skip it if: you’re greenfield with OpenTelemetry — Jaeger v2 has tighter OTel integration and a more active roadmap. Maintenance pace has slowed (last release cadence is quarterly rather than monthly); the project is healthy but not actively gaining features. The skip-it-if warning: if cutting-edge OTel semantics matter, look elsewhere.
Deployment: java -jar zipkin.jar or the official Docker image. No Helm chart from upstream, but community charts exist.