head to head · open source
jaeger vs btrace
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. btrace has 5,997 stars, 953 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 290% (23,368 vs 5,997 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; btrace is written in Java under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, btrace 16%. btrace was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (observability, tracing), 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 | btrace | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 953 |
| 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 btrace if
- You want the btrace 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 btrace 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 btrace
BTrace Safe, dynamic tracing for Java applications BTrace dynamically instruments running Java applications to inject tracing code at runtime. No restarts. No recompilation. Production safe. Quick links: Quick Reference · Step by Step Tutorial Why BTrace? Zero downtime Attach to running JVMs without restart Production safe Verified scripts can't crash your application Flexible probes Method entry/exit, timings, field access, allocations Low overhead Bytecode injection with minimal performance impact Supported Java Versions BTrace 3.0 runs on Java 8–25+. Running BTrace against a JVM older than Java 17 is…
read the full btrace 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 jaeger or btrace more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and btrace has 5,997. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and btrace free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and btrace under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and btrace?
jaeger is written in Go and btrace 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, jaeger or btrace?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose btrace if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.