# Jaeger vs OpenTelemetry

**Leader by Vioscale score:** OpenTelemetry

| Attribute | Jaeger | OpenTelemetry |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 59.2 (38% (low)) | 70.9 (61% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 96 | 97 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1,141 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 23,144 | 7,452 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | - | 110,515,759 |
| deployment.options | `{"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | 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. | A standardized platform for instrumenting applications to collect traces, metrics, and logs. Data is collected through language-specific SDKs and services, then exported to any observability backend without requiring application code changes. |
| features.capabilities | `{"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"}` | `{"logs":true,"hosting":"both","metrics":true,"tracing":true,"trace_role":"platform","otel_native":true,"service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","trace_search":true,"multi_protocol":true,"metrics_correlation":true,"auto_instrumentation":"agent"}` |
| integrations.count | 7 | 3 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Elasticsearch"},{"name":"OpenSearch"},{"name":"Cassandra"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"Badger"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Memory"}]` | `[{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Zipkin"}]` |
| language.primary | Go | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.jaegertracing.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:24:51.164Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://opentelemetry.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-24T22:37:05.387Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | 28 | 14 |
| release.history | `[{"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"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.67.0","date":"2025-03-08T05:56:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.67.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger/releases/tag/v1.66.0","date":"2025-02-06T19:03:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.66.0"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.159.0","date":"2026-08-17T17:37:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.159.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.158.0","date":"2026-08-04T13:44:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.158.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.157.0","date":"2026-07-21T12:38:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.157.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.156.0","date":"2026-07-07T07:29:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.156.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.155.0","date":"2026-06-23T16:56:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.155.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.154.0","date":"2026-06-08T23:51:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.154.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.153.0","date":"2026-05-25T08:09:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.153.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.152.1","date":"2026-05-19T19:53:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.152.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.152.0","date":"2026-05-11T11:48:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.152.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.151.0","date":"2026-04-28T18:57:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.151.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.150.0","date":"2026-04-13T11:06:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.150.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.149.0","date":"2026-03-31T13:43:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.149.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.148.0","date":"2026-03-17T13:42:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.148.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.147.0","date":"2026-03-02T15:09:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.147.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.146.1","date":"2026-02-18T13:48:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.146.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.146.0","date":"2026-02-17T21:22:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.146.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.145.0","date":"2026-02-02T18:22:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.145.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.144.0","date":"2026-01-20T09:41:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.144.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.143.0","date":"2026-01-05T20:27:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.143.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.142.0","date":"2025-12-15T20:48:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.142.0"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 7.8 | 7.9 |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"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 | Jaeger | OpenTelemetry |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | SaaS platform | SaaS platform |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | OTel-native | 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 | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Cassandra, Badger, ClickHouse, Kafka (buffer), memory | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:35:03.393Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*