head to head · open source
jaeger vs openwolf
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars, 3,122 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. openwolf has 2,351 stars, 212 forks, 56 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 888% (23,223 vs 2,351 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; openwolf is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, openwolf 9%. 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 | openwolf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 212 |
| 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 openwolf if
- You want the openwolf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and openwolf 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 openwolf
OpenWolf is an open source TypeScript tool that keeps portable project memory for coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode and measures token usage from harness transcripts, aimed at developers who lose context between sessions or across agents.
read the full openwolf overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or openwolf more popular?
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars and openwolf has 2,351. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and openwolf free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and openwolf under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and openwolf?
jaeger is written in Go and openwolf 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 openwolf?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,223 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose openwolf if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.