head to head · open source
jaeger vs hertzbeat
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars, 3,122 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. hertzbeat has 7,398 stars, 1,330 forks, 313 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 214% (23,223 vs 7,398 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; hertzbeat is written in Java under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, hertzbeat 18%. hertzbeat 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.
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Side by side
| jaeger | hertzbeat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 7.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 hertzbeat if
- You want the hertzbeat 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 hertzbeat 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 hertzbeat
Apache HertzBeat is an AI powered, next generation open source real time observability system written in Java under the Apache 2.0 licence, built for teams that need unified metrics and logs collection, centralized alerting distribution, and intelligent management and analysis without deploying an agent on every monitored host.
read the full hertzbeat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or hertzbeat more popular?
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars and hertzbeat has 7,398. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and hertzbeat free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and hertzbeat under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and hertzbeat?
jaeger is written in Go and hertzbeat 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 hertzbeat?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,223 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose hertzbeat if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.