head to head · open source
jaeger vs aya
jaeger has 23,378 GitHub stars, 3,224 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped today. aya has 4,892 stars, 484 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger leads on adoption by 378% (23,378 vs 4,892 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; aya is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, aya 10%. jaeger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (observability), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| jaeger | aya | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 484 |
| 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 aya if
- You want the aya feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and aya fits your workflow better
About jaeger
[![Slack chat][slack img]]( get in touch) [![Unit Tests][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][cov img]][cov] [![Project+Community stats][community badge]][community stats] [![FOSSA Status][fossa img]][fossa] [![OpenSSF Scorecard][openssf img]][openssf] [![OpenSSF Best Practices][openssf bp img]][openssf bp] [![CLOMonitor][clomonitor img]][clomonitor] [![Artifact Hub][artifacthub img]][artifacthub] Jaeger a Distributed Tracing System 💥💥💥 Jaeger v2 is out! Read the blog post and try it out. Quick Start Get Jaeger running in seconds with Docker: For production deployments and more options, see the Getting Started…
read the full jaeger overview →
About aya
[![Crates.io][crates badge]][crates url] ![License][license badge] [![Build status][build badge]][build url] [![Book][book badge]][book url] [![Gurubase][gurubase badge]][gurubase url] [crates badge]: [crates url]: [license badge]: [build badge]: [build url]: [book badge]: [book url]: [gurubase badge]: [gurubase url]: API Documentation [![Unreleased Documentation][git docs badge]][git api docs] [![Documentation][api docs badge]][api docs] [git docs badge]: [git api docs]: [api docs badge]: [api docs]: Community [![Discord][discord badge]][chat url] [![Awesome][awesome badge]][awesome aya] Join [the conversation…
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 jaeger or aya more popular?
jaeger has 23,378 GitHub stars and aya has 4,892. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and aya free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and aya under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and aya?
jaeger is written in Go and aya in Rust. 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 aya?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,378 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose aya if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.