# Uptrace vs Zipkin

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Uptrace

| Attribute | Uptrace | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 57.4 (69% (medium)) | 45.5 (37% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 5 | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 0 | 1,426 |
| adoption.github_stars | 4,303 | 17,464 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 1,716 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Full-featured observability backend built on OpenTelemetry standards and ClickHouse. Provides distributed tracing, metrics, and log management with dramatically lower costs than competing platforms through pay-per-gigabyte billing rather than enterprise licensing models. It is indexed under Distributed Tracing Tools.","source":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"What is Uptrace?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Uptrace 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 $0.03. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"Is Uptrace free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Uptrace. 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://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"What platforms does Uptrace support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Uptrace can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"Can Uptrace be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 14 integrations for Uptrace, including OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Vector, FluentBit, CloudWatch, Grafana, GitHub Actions and Slack, plus 6 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"What does Uptrace integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and GDPR for Uptrace. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Uptrace not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://uptrace.dev","question":"What security certifications does Uptrace have?","confidence":0.48},{"answer":"Yes. Uptrace 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/uptrace/uptrace","question":"Is Uptrace open source?","confidence":0.67},{"answer":"Uptrace is available worldwide. Its primary market is the United States.","source":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","question":"Where is Uptrace available?","confidence":0.5}]` | `[{"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,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An observability solution that brings together application traces, metrics, and log records into one place. Powered by OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse, it's offered both as a cloud service and for self-hosting, designed to process and analyze large volumes of telemetry at substantially lower cost than competing platforms. | 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":"platform","service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","trace_search":true,"multi_protocol":true,"storage_backend":"ClickHouse with PostgreSQL for metadata","high_cardinality":true,"metrics_correlation":true,"auto_instrumentation":"none"}` | `{"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 | 10 | 9 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Vector"},{"name":"FluentBit"},{"name":"CloudWatch"},{"name":"Grafana"},{"name":"GitHub Actions"},{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"AlertManager"},{"name":"WebHook"},{"name":"Google Cloud Auth"},{"name":"Okta"},{"name":"Keycloak"},{"name":"Google Cloud","native":true},{"name":"Terraform","native":true},{"name":"Tempo","native":true,"category":"tracing"}]` | `[{"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 | Go | Java |
| license.spdx | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Usage-based","summary":"$0.075/GB spans/logs (from $0.10/GB, down to $0.016/GB at scale), $0.025 per 1M datapoints for metrics. 50 GB free/month.","features":["Unlimited users, services, and hosts","OpenTelemetry native","Trace, metrics, and log ingestion","High-cardinality attributes","Automatic volume discounts (down to $0.016/GB)","Monthly billing cap","Sampling configuration"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.075,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"datapoints"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.025,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Pay for data ingested; rates decrease with volume","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"metrics_free":"5,000 timeseries/mo","spans_and_logs_free":"50 GB/mo"}}],"addOns":[{"name":"Cold Storage retention (beyond 4 weeks, up to 100 weeks)","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.01,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000,"unit":"timeseries-month"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2,"currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"From $0.075/GB spans/logs, $0.025 per 1M datapoints metrics. 50 GB free/month, automatic discounts at scale.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://uptrace.dev/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-09-14T15:37:57.437Z","startingPrice":{"unit":"datapoints","amount":0.025,"currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"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.starting_price | `{"amount":0.025,"currency":"USD"}` | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | 11 | 15 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-rc.1","date":"2026-10-07T15:04:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.8","date":"2026-08-13T14:47:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.7","date":"2026-06-05T11:50:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.6","date":"2026-05-25T10:11:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.3","date":"2026-05-13T13:04:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.5","date":"2026-04-14T10:29:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.4","date":"2026-03-13T12:37:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.3","date":"2026-03-11T11:02:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta.2","date":"2026-03-09T09:58:42Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.1.0-beta","date":"2026-01-21T13:29:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.1.0-beta"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.2","date":"2025-12-02T14:08:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.1","date":"2025-08-11T11:16:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.1-rc.1","date":"2025-08-11T09:28:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.1-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0","date":"2025-07-24T07:09:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.4","date":"2025-07-24T06:29:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0-rc.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.3","date":"2025-07-16T14:47:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0-rc.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.2","date":"2025-07-16T13:45:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0-rc.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v1.7.7","date":"2025-07-02T09:04:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0-rc.1","date":"2025-07-07T13:39:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/uptrace/uptrace/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.5","date":"2025-06-13T07:48:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v2.0.0-beta.5"}]` | `[{"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.sla_pct | 99.9 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 4.2 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fuptrace%2Fuptrace&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"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 | Uptrace | Zipkin |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | SaaS platform | 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 | None | Agent-based |
| **Correlation** |  |  |
| Correlate traces with metrics/logs | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud + self-hosted | Self-hosted only |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | ClickHouse with PostgreSQL for metadata | In-memory, Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T09:27:31.716Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*