head to head · open source
huginn vs dd-trace-java
huginn has 49,969 GitHub stars, 4,299 forks, 698 open issues and last shipped today. dd-trace-java has 737 stars, 360 forks, 478 open issues and last shipped today. huginn leads on adoption by 6,680% (49,969 vs 737 stars). huginn is written in Ruby under MIT; dd-trace-java is written in Java under Apache-2.0. huginn has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, dd-trace-java 49%. huginn was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| huginn | dd-trace-java | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 737 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.3K | ⑂ 360 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick huginn if
- You weight community size — 50K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dd-trace-java if
- You want the dd-trace-java feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and dd-trace-java fits your workflow better
About huginn
Huginn is an open source system for building agents that perform automated tasks online, written in Ruby and released under the MIT license. Its agents read the web, watch for events, and take actions on the user's behalf. Internally, agents create and consume events that propagate along a directed graph, which means one agent's output becomes another agent's input and a chain of small steps can be composed into a larger workflow. The project lives in the Ruby ecosystem and is distributed as an official Docker image or installed locally from a forked repository.
read the full huginn overview →
About dd-trace-java
Datadog Java APM This repository contains dd trace java , Datadog's APM client Java library. dd trace java contains APIs to automatically or manually trace and profile Java applications. These features power Distributed Tracing with Automatic Instrumentation, Continuous Profiling, Error Tracking, Continuous Integration Visibility, Deployment Tracking, Code Hotspots and more. Getting Started To use and configure, check out the [setup documentation][setup docs]. For advanced usage, check out the [configuration reference][configuration reference] and [custom instrumentation API][api docs]. Confused about the termino…
read the full dd-trace-java overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is huginn or dd-trace-java more popular?
huginn has 49,969 GitHub stars and dd-trace-java has 737. huginn has the larger community by that measure.
Are huginn and dd-trace-java free?
Both are open source. huginn is licensed under MIT and dd-trace-java under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between huginn and dd-trace-java?
huginn is written in Ruby and dd-trace-java in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, huginn or dd-trace-java?
Choose huginn if you want the larger community (49,969 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dd-trace-java if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.