What is Zipkin?
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system that helps gather timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures, with features for both the collection and lookup of trace data.
What Zipkin does
The capabilities that matter for distributed tracing tools, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Trace role
- SaaS platform
- OpenTelemetry support
- None
- Multi-protocol (Jaeger + Zipkin + OTLP)
- -
- Trace search / filter by attributes
- ✓
- Service dependency graph
- ✓
- High-cardinality attribute exploration
- -
- Tail-based / dynamic sampling
- -
- Auto-instrumentation
- None
- Correlate traces with metrics/logs
- -
- Hosting
- Self-hosted only
- Storage backend
- Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- Web
- Self-hosted
Integrations (7)
Independently observed- HTTP
- Kafka
- Apache ActiveMQ
- gRPC
- RabbitMQ
- Apache Cassandra
- Elasticsearch
Zipkin alternatives
Other distributed tracing tools we track, ranked by the same independent score.
- OpenTelemetryThe open standard for telemetrylow · 37%
- SigNozThe Open Source Datadog Alternativelow · 37%
- UptraceOpenTelemetry-native observabilitylow · 48%
- OpenTelemetryThe open standard for telemetrylow · 47%
- JaegerOpen source, distributed tracing platformlow · 15%
- Grafana TempoScale tracing with minimal operational cost and less complexitylow · 46%
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for Zipkin, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release Cadence | 64 | 10.00 | 638.9 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 46 | 12.00 | 549.8 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 26 | 16.00 | 415.5 | ✓ |
| Github Stars | 80 | 5.00 | 400.1 | ✓ |
| Github Activity | 0 | 18.00 | 0.0 | ✓ |
| Security Posture | 0 | 22.00 | 0.0 | - |
| Package Downloads | 0 | 26.00 | 0.0 | - |
| Stackoverflow Activity | 0 | 12.00 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 0 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 65% |
Adoption
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Github stars | 17,449 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 90% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"hosting":"self","trace_role":"platform","service_map":true,"otel_support":"none","trace_search":true,"storage_backend":"Apache Cassandra, Elasticsearch","auto_instrumentation":"none"} | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Integrations
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Count | 7 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Java | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | Apache-2.0 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 95% |
Release
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cadence days | 65 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 70% |
Reliability
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Status page | Yes | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 60% |