head to head · open source
jaeger vs loongcollector
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. loongcollector has 2,214 stars, 456 forks, 166 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 955% (23,368 vs 2,214 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; loongcollector is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, loongcollector 21%. 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.
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Side by side
| jaeger | loongcollector | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 456 |
| 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 loongcollector if
- You want the loongcollector 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 loongcollector 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 loongcollector
LoongCollector High Performance Observability Data Collector Fast, Lightweight, and Battle Tested Observability Agent Quick Start • Documentation • Performance Benchmarks • Contributing Why LoongCollector? LoongCollector is a high performance, lightweight observability data collector designed for modern cloud native environments. Born from Alibaba's 15 year journey handling exponential traffic growth and powering tens of millions of deployments, LoongCollector delivers 10x higher throughput with 80% lower resource usage compared to open source alternatives. LoongCollector is a key component of…
read the full loongcollector overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or loongcollector more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and loongcollector has 2,214. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and loongcollector free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and loongcollector under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and loongcollector?
jaeger is written in Go and loongcollector 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 loongcollector?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose loongcollector if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.