# AWS X-Ray vs Zipkin

**Leader by Vioscale score:** AWS X-Ray

| Attribute | AWS X-Ray | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 63.6 (63% (medium)) | 43 (38% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 1,426 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 17,453 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals is an APM solution providing automatic instrumentation and observability for distributed applications across AWS services with prebuilt dashboards, service mapping, and AI-powered troubleshooting. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","trace_role":"backend","service_map":true,"trace_search":true,"metrics_correlation":true,"auto_instrumentation":"agent"}` | `{"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 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"HTTP"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Apache ActiveMQ"},{"name":"gRPC"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"Apache Pulsar"},{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"Apache Cassandra"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"Brave"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Java |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | - |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/xray/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T14:23:37.355Z"}` | `{"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 | no | - |
| 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.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | 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 | AWS X-Ray | Zipkin |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | Trace backend / store | Trace backend / store |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | - | - |
| 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 | Agent-based |
| **Correlation** |  |  |
| Correlate traces with metrics/logs | ✓ | - |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Self-hosted only |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | - | In-memory, Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T15:09:06.206Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*