OpenZipkin
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Output—per 1M tokens
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About
OpenZipkin is ranked #12 of 29 in distributed tracing tools on Inferse. It runs on Self-hosted, Web. There is a free plan.
Compared on distributed tracing tools
Facts
- Purpose
- Zipkin collects and looks up tracing data to help troubleshoot latency in service architectures.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Trace search
- Users can open a trace by ID or query by service, operation name, tags, and duration.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Trace summaries
- The UI summarizes the percentage of time spent in a service and whether operations failed.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Dependency diagram
- The UI includes a dependency diagram showing how many traced requests went through each application.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Data collection
- Applications must be instrumented to report trace data; listed transports include HTTP, Kafka, ActiveMQ, gRPC, and RabbitMQ.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Storage
- The site lists in-memory storage and persistent backends including MySQL, Cassandra, and Elasticsearch.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Instrumentation
- The instrumentation list includes supported and community-supported libraries for languages including C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Scala, PHP, Python, and Lua.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Deployment
- The quickstart describes running Zipkin with Docker, Java, Homebrew, or from source.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Java requirement
- The quickstart says Java 17 or higher is required for its self-contained executable JAR option.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Security limitation
- The architecture page says the web UI has no built-in authentication.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Support
- The project directs users to its Gitter chat for questions and says the OpenZipkin organization is primarily volunteers.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
- Maker
- OpenZipkin is the open-source organization that stewards Zipkin code, documentation, specifications, and support; Zipkin was originally created at Twitter.zipkin.io · 2 Oct 2026
Best OpenZipkin alternatives
See all 12
7.4 Elastic Observability See plans price on the maker's page Free trial
7.4 Grafana Cloud Traces Free free plan, no paid price published Free plan
7.4 Tracekit $24/mo first paid tier Free plan
7.4 Uptrace $39/mo first paid tier Free plan
7.3 Honeycomb $150/mo first paid tier Free plan
7.3 Hubble Free free plan, no paid price published Free plan Where it ranks on Inferse
Sources
- zipkin.io· checked 2 Oct 2026
- zipkin.io/pages/extensions_choices· checked 2 Oct 2026
- zipkin.io/pages/tracers_instrumentation· checked 2 Oct 2026
- zipkin.io/pages/quickstart· checked 2 Oct 2026
- zipkin.io/pages/architecture.html· checked 2 Oct 2026
- zipkin.io/pages/community.html· checked 2 Oct 2026



