# Grafana Tempo vs Jaeger

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Grafana Tempo

| Attribute | Grafana Tempo | Jaeger |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 63.6 (58% (medium)) | 56.3 (38% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 73 | 1,141 |
| adoption.github_stars | 5,527 | 23,297 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Grafana Tempo is an open-source distributed tracing backend designed for high-scale trace collection using only object storage, integrating with Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki. It supports industry-standard tracing protocols and eliminates the need for expensive database infrastructure. It is indexed under Distributed Tracing Tools.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","question":"What is Grafana Tempo?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafana Tempo is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence. A commercial or hosted edition starts at $19 per month. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","question":"Is Grafana Tempo free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Grafana Tempo supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","question":"What platforms does Grafana Tempo support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Grafana Tempo can be deployed cloud / SaaS and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","question":"Can Grafana Tempo be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 7 integrations for Grafana Tempo, including Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Jaeger, Zipkin, OpenTelemetry and OpenCensus. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","question":"What does Grafana Tempo integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR for Grafana Tempo. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Grafana Tempo not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://trust.grafana.com","question":"What security certifications does Grafana Tempo have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Yes. Grafana Tempo is published under the AGPL-3.0 licence, a copyleft licence, so check its terms before embedding it in a closed-source product. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo","question":"Is Grafana Tempo open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"A backend that collects execution traces from microservice-based applications and provides analysis tools to understand system behavior and diagnose issues. Teams use it to track how requests move through their services and identify where delays or errors occur. It is indexed under Distributed Tracing Tools.","source":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","question":"What is Jaeger?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Jaeger is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","question":"Is Jaeger free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Jaeger. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","question":"What platforms does Jaeger support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Jaeger can be deployed on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","question":"Can Jaeger be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 7 integrations for Jaeger, including Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Cassandra, ClickHouse, Badger, Kafka and Memory. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","question":"What does Jaeger integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Jaeger is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger","question":"Is Jaeger open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An open-source distributed tracing platform that stores trace data using affordable object storage rather than specialized databases, making it simpler and cheaper to operate while integrating with Grafana and other observability tools. | Jaeger is an open-source tracing platform that processes and analyzes telemetry data from distributed systems, helping teams identify performance issues, diagnose root causes, and understand service dependencies. It provides search, visualization, and aggregation of traces across complex application architectures. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"both","trace_role":"backend","service_map":true,"otel_support":"ingest","trace_search":true,"multi_protocol":true,"storage_backend":"object storage","high_cardinality":true,"metrics_correlation":true}` | `{"hosting":"both","trace_role":"platform","service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","trace_search":true,"tail_sampling":true,"storage_backend":"Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Cassandra, Badger, ClickHouse, Kafka (buffer), memory"}` |
| integrations.count | 10 | 7 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Loki"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Zipkin"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"OpenCensus"},{"name":"Kafka","native":true,"direction":"inbound"},{"name":"Amazon S3","category":"storage"},{"name":"Google Cloud Storage","category":"storage"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure","category":"storage"}]` | `[{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"Cassandra"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"Badger"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Memory"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry","native":true,"direction":"inbound"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | Go |
| license.spdx | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Open Source","description":"Grafana Tempo open source (AGPLv3)","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Grafana Cloud Pro","features":["Platform fee includes limited trace retention and usage","30 days retention for traces","8x5 email support"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":19,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Grafana Cloud Enterprise","features":["Custom retention","Premium support","Deployment flexibility (Public Cloud, Federal Cloud, Bring Your Own Cloud)"],"commitment":"annual","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":25000,"period":"year","currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":true}],"summary":"Open source (free). Grafana Cloud integration from $19/month or $25k/year enterprise.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-01T14:57:40.524Z","startingPrice":{"amount":19,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:24:51.164Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 11 | 28 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.1.0","date":"2026-09-29T17:06:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.1.0-rc.1","date":"2026-09-17T17:22:52Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v3.1.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.0.3","date":"2026-08-13T20:37:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.8","date":"2026-08-13T20:37:12Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.9.5","date":"2026-08-13T20:37:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.9.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.9.4","date":"2026-07-24T12:29:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.9.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.7","date":"2026-06-12T16:28:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.0.2","date":"2026-06-09T16:30:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.6","date":"2026-06-08T21:43:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.0.0","date":"2026-05-28T15:09:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v3.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v3.0.0-rc.1","date":"2026-05-06T15:23:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v3.0.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.5","date":"2026-04-23T18:14:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.9.2","date":"2026-04-23T22:24:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.8.4","date":"2026-04-23T22:25:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.4","date":"2026-04-13T11:20:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.3","date":"2026-03-17T17:52:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.2","date":"2026-03-12T15:04:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.1","date":"2026-02-17T11:49:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.10.0","date":"2026-01-26T17:59:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/tag/v2.8.3","date":"2026-01-20T19:47:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.8.3"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.22.0","date":"2026-10-06T14:27:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.22.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.21.0","date":"2026-09-14T23:05:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.21.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.20.0","date":"2026-07-20T03:34:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.20.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.19.0","date":"2026-06-03T14:25:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.19.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.18.0","date":"2026-05-13T16:01:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.18.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.17.0","date":"2026-03-30T20:07:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.17.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.16.0","date":"2026-03-07T12:49:46Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.16.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.15.1","date":"2026-02-09T00:17:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.15.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.15.0","date":"2026-02-06T19:06:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.15.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.14.1","date":"2026-01-02T18:36:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.14.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v2.14.0","date":"2026-01-02T02:29:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.14.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.76.0","date":"2025-12-03T16:31:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.76.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.75.0","date":"2025-11-18T18:23:02Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.75.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.74.0","date":"2025-10-02T12:06:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.74.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.73.0","date":"2025-09-03T18:48:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.73.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.72.0","date":"2025-08-06T19:05:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.72.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.71.0","date":"2025-07-05T00:57:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.71.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.70.0","date":"2025-06-10T18:43:40Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.70.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.69.0","date":"2025-05-09T21:55:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.69.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.68.0","date":"2025-04-05T10:21:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.68.0"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 7.4 | 8.6 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.trust_center | https://grafana.com/security/hall-of-fame/issue_35/ | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":3,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fgrafana%2Ftempo&per_page=100","last_12m":3,"max_severity":"HIGH"}` | `{"count":2,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fjaegertracing%2Fjaeger&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":"MODERATE"}` |

## Capabilities (Distributed Tracing Tools)

| Capability | Grafana Tempo | Jaeger |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | Trace backend / store | SaaS platform |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | OTLP ingest | OTel-native |
| Multi-protocol (Jaeger + Zipkin + OTLP) | ✓ | - |
| **Query** |  |  |
| Trace search / filter by attributes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Service dependency graph | ✓ | ✓ |
| High-cardinality attribute exploration | ✓ | - |
| **Sampling** |  |  |
| Tail-based / dynamic sampling | - | ✓ |
| **Instrumentation** |  |  |
| Auto-instrumentation | - | - |
| **Correlation** |  |  |
| Correlate traces with metrics/logs | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | object storage | Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Cassandra, Badger, ClickHouse, Kafka (buffer), memory |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:22:32.529Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*