head to head · open source
jaeger vs dd-trace-dotnet
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars, 3,122 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dd-trace-dotnet has 575 stars, 168 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped today. jaeger leads on adoption by 3,939% (23,223 vs 575 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; dd-trace-dotnet is written in C# under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, dd-trace-dotnet 29%. dd-trace-dotnet was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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.
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Side by side
| jaeger | dd-trace-dotnet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 575 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 168 |
| 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 dd-trace-dotnet if
- You want the dd-trace-dotnet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and dd-trace-dotnet 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 dd-trace-dotnet
dd trace dotnet is the Apache 2.0 C repository containing Datadog's .NET client libraries for application telemetry collection, distributed tracing, and continuous profiling, built for .NET developers and operators who need to instrument .NET applications and send telemetry to the Datadog product suite.
read the full dd-trace-dotnet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or dd-trace-dotnet more popular?
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars and dd-trace-dotnet has 575. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and dd-trace-dotnet free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dd-trace-dotnet under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and dd-trace-dotnet?
jaeger is written in Go and dd-trace-dotnet in C#. 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 dd-trace-dotnet?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,223 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dd-trace-dotnet if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.