head to head · open source
jaeger vs opentelemetry-ruby
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. opentelemetry-ruby has 613 stars, 303 forks, 144 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger leads on adoption by 3,712% (23,368 vs 613 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; opentelemetry-ruby is written in Ruby under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, opentelemetry-ruby 49%. opentelemetry-ruby was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (distributed-tracing, hacktoberfest, opentelemetry), 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 | opentelemetry-ruby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 613 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 303 |
| 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 opentelemetry-ruby if
- You want the opentelemetry-ruby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and opentelemetry-ruby 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 opentelemetry-ruby
OpenTelemetry Ruby [![Slack channel][slack image]][slack url] [![GitHub Discussions][discussions image]][discussions url] [![CI][ci image]][ci url] [![Apache License][license image]][license image] [![OpenSSF Scorecard for opentelemetry ruby contrib][openssf scorecard image]][openssf scorecard url] [![FOSSA License Status][fossa license image]][fossa license url] [![FOSSA Security Status][fossa security image]][fossa security url] The Ruby OpenTelemetry client. [Getting Started][getting started] Contributing Contrib Repository [Instrumentation Libraries][contrib instrumentations] Versioning Useful links License…
read the full opentelemetry-ruby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or opentelemetry-ruby more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and opentelemetry-ruby has 613. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and opentelemetry-ruby free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and opentelemetry-ruby under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and opentelemetry-ruby?
jaeger is written in Go and opentelemetry-ruby in Ruby. 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 opentelemetry-ruby?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose opentelemetry-ruby if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.