head to head · open source
jaeger vs effect
jaeger has 23,217 GitHub stars, 3,119 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. effect has 16,097 stars, 747 forks, 253 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger leads on adoption by 44% (23,217 vs 16,097 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; effect is written in TypeScript under MIT. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, effect 5%. effect was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (observability, opentelemetry), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| jaeger | effect | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 747 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jaeger if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick effect if
- You want the effect feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and effect fits your workflow better
About jaeger
Jaeger is a distributed tracing platform hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), where it graduated as the 7th top level project in October 2019. It was originally created by Uber Technologies and then donated to the CNCF. The project is written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it lives in the OpenTelemetry and observability ecosystem: it consumes traces from OpenTelemetry SDKs and reuses components from the OpenTelemetry Collector. Its repository carries topics including cncf, distributed tracing, jaeger, observability, opentelemetry and tracing, and the project is openly gove…
read the full jaeger overview →
About effect
Effect is a TypeScript library for building robust, maintainable, type safe, and production grade applications. It lives in the TypeScript and JavaScript ecosystem, distributed as the core effect package alongside a monorepo of integration packages that extend it. The project is MIT licensed, has been developed for roughly seven years, and currently ships Effect V4 as a release candidate, with the main branch holding v4 development and the v3 branch retaining the previous line.
read the full effect overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or effect more popular?
jaeger has 23,217 GitHub stars and effect has 16,097. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and effect free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and effect under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and effect?
jaeger is written in Go and effect in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, jaeger or effect?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,217 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose effect if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.