head to head · open source
jaeger vs evlog
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. evlog has 1,909 stars, 69 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 1,124% (23,368 vs 1,909 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; evlog is written in TypeScript under MIT. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, evlog 4%. evlog 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 | evlog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 69 |
| 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 evlog if
- You want the evlog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and evlog 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 evlog
evlog Digging through logs is not observability. It's hope. A single request generates 10+ log lines. When production breaks at 3am, you're sifting scattered lines for a needle of signal. Your errors say "Something went wrong", which helps nobody. evlog is different. One wide event per operation. All the context. Errors that explain why and what to do next. Why evlog? The Problem The Solution Output: Built for AI Assisted Development We're in the age of AI agents writing and debugging code. When an agent encounters an error, it needs clear, structured context to understand what happened and how to fix it…
read the full evlog 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 evlog more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and evlog has 1,909. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and evlog free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and evlog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and evlog?
jaeger is written in Go and evlog 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 evlog?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose evlog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.