# Honeycomb vs Zipkin

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Honeycomb

| Attribute | Honeycomb | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 59.4 (72% (medium)) | 45.5 (37% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 1,426 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 17,464 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A unified observability platform that combines traces, logs, and metrics in one view for rapid production debugging. Built with OpenTelemetry support and high-cardinality telemetry analysis, it helps teams investigate issues across distributed systems and AI agents without paying extra costs as data volume grows. It is indexed under Distributed Tracing Tools.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io","question":"What is Honeycomb?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Honeycomb offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $0.10. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing","question":"Is Honeycomb free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Honeycomb supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing","question":"What platforms does Honeycomb support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Honeycomb, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io","question":"Can Honeycomb be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 26 integrations for Honeycomb, including Anthropic Claude, OpenTelemetry, Google Analytics, Slack, Microsoft Teams, AWS PrivateLink, Jaeger and Zipkin, plus 18 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io","question":"What does Honeycomb integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Honeycomb. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Honeycomb not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io","question":"What security certifications does Honeycomb have?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Honeycomb is available worldwide. The vendor is headquartered in the United States.","source":"https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing","question":"Where is Honeycomb available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"Collects timing and dependency data from instrumented applications to troubleshoot latency issues. Provides a web interface for querying traces by service, operation, tags, or duration, and displays how requests flow through the service architecture. It is indexed under Distributed Tracing Tools.","source":"https://zipkin.io","question":"What is Zipkin?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Zipkin 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://zipkin.io","question":"Is Zipkin free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Zipkin supports the web, macOS and Linux. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://zipkin.io","question":"What platforms does Zipkin support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Zipkin can be deployed on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://zipkin.io","question":"Can Zipkin be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 10 integrations for Zipkin, including HTTP, Kafka, Apache ActiveMQ, gRPC, RabbitMQ, Apache Pulsar, Elasticsearch and Apache Cassandra, plus 2 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://zipkin.io","question":"What does Zipkin integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Zipkin 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/openzipkin/zipkin","question":"Is Zipkin open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Centralized platform for storing and querying observability data from production systems and AI applications, designed to help teams rapidly troubleshoot issues through integrated logs, metrics, and traces. | Zipkin captures detailed request tracking data from distributed systems, stores it using various backends, and provides a UI for searching traces by service, operation, and duration, along with visualization of service dependency diagrams. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"both","trace_role":"backend","service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","trace_search":true,"tail_sampling":false,"multi_protocol":true,"storage_backend":"columnar data store","high_cardinality":true,"metrics_correlation":true}` | `{"hosting":"self","trace_role":"backend","service_map":true,"trace_search":true,"multi_protocol":true,"storage_backend":"In-memory, Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch","auto_instrumentation":"agent"}` |
| integrations.count | 19 | 9 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Anthropic Claude"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"Google Analytics"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"AWS PrivateLink"},{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Zipkin"},{"name":"OTLP"},{"name":"Cursor"},{"name":"Claude Code"},{"name":"Amazon Bedrock AgentCore"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"GitHub Actions Honeymarker"},{"name":"AWS Secrets Manager"},{"name":"AWS CloudFront"},{"name":"AWS CloudWatch"},{"name":"Amazon Timestream"},{"name":"Tracetest"},{"name":"Amazon Kinesis"},{"name":"AWS CloudHSM"},{"name":"Fluentd"},{"name":"Terraform"},{"name":"Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service"}]` | `[{"name":"HTTP"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Apache ActiveMQ"},{"name":"gRPC"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"Apache Pulsar"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Apache Cassandra"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"Brave"},{"name":"Apache Kafka","category":"messaging","direction":"inbound"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Java |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free forever, up to 20M events/month","features":["Distributed Tracing","2 Triggers","BubbleUp","OpenTelemetry Support","Team Query History","Query Result Permalinks","Honeycomb Metrics","Canvas AI Copilot","Honeycomb MCP","Agent Timeline"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Testing and individual projects","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"events":"20M/month","metrics_data_points":"100M/month"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"Starting at $150/month, flexible event volume","features":["All Free features","100 Triggers","2 Service Level Objectives (SLOs)","Single-Sign On (SSO)","Honeycomb Support"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":150,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"gb"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.1,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Teams with production applications","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"events":"750M/month","metrics_data_points":"3.75B/month"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom volume discounts, enterprise support","features":["All Pro features","300+ Triggers","100+ Service Level Objectives (SLOs)","Service Map","Enterprise Support for Refinery","Enterprise-Grade Support + Onboarding","Query Data API","AWS PrivateLink","SLO Reporting API","Honeycomb Private Cloud support"],"commitment":"annual","description":"Multi-team and large-scale applications","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"events":"Variable","metrics_data_points":"Variable"}}],"addOns":[{"name":"Frontend performance analysis"},{"name":"Enterprise-grade alerting"},{"name":"Installation and enablement services"}],"summary":"From $150/month (Pro). Unlimited seats and queries. Free tier available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.honeycomb.io/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:29:52.948Z","startingPrice":{"amount":0.1,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://zipkin.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:27:18.245Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | - | 15 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.6.1","date":"2026-04-08T19:00:52Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.6.0","date":"2026-03-23T21:13:45Z","type":"stable","version":"3.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.5.1","date":"2025-04-27T20:51:04Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.5.0","date":"2025-02-16T18:23:14Z","type":"stable","version":"3.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.4.4","date":"2025-02-16T17:20:25Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.4.3","date":"2025-01-06T22:48:34Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.4.2","date":"2024-10-08T12:46:38Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.4.1","date":"2024-08-04T06:44:30Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.4.0","date":"2024-05-26T02:06:56Z","type":"stable","version":"3.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.3.1","date":"2024-05-25T11:57:58Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.3.0","date":"2024-04-16T17:01:19Z","type":"stable","version":"3.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.2.1","date":"2024-04-13T18:22:45Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.2.0","date":"2024-04-13T02:00:36Z","type":"stable","version":"3.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.1.1","date":"2024-03-07T07:02:48Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.1.0","date":"2024-02-26T12:33:27Z","type":"stable","version":"3.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.0.6","date":"2024-02-09T02:47:27Z","type":"stable","version":"3.0.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.0.5","date":"2024-01-25T02:23:59Z","type":"stable","version":"3.0.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.0.4","date":"2024-01-17T19:16:37Z","type":"stable","version":"3.0.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.0.3","date":"2024-01-15T00:55:42Z","type":"stable","version":"3.0.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.0.2","date":"2024-01-13T10:27:29Z","type":"stable","version":"3.0.2"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.certifications | `[{"name":"SOC 2 Type II","status":"active"}]` | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 4.2 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=maven&package_name=io.zipkin.java%3Azipkin-autoconfigure-ui&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Distributed Tracing Tools)

| Capability | Honeycomb | Zipkin |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | Trace backend / store | Trace backend / store |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | 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 | - | Agent-based |
| **Correlation** |  |  |
| Correlate traces with metrics/logs | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Self-hosted only |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | columnar data store | In-memory, Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:59:32.653Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*