head to head · open source
jaeger vs pinpoint
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pinpoint has 13,870 stars, 3,737 forks, 543 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jaeger leads on adoption by 68% (23,368 vs 13,870 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pinpoint is written in Java under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, pinpoint 27%. pinpoint was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (distributed-tracing, tracing), 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 | pinpoint | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 3.7K |
| 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 pinpoint if
- You want the pinpoint 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 pinpoint 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 pinpoint
Latest Release (2026/05/21) We're happy to announce the release of Pinpoint v3.1.0. Please check the release note at ( The current stable version is v3.1.0. Live Demo Take a quick look at Pinpoint with our demo! PHP, PYTHON Pinpoint also supports application written in PHP, Python. Check out our agent repository. About Pinpoint Pinpoint is an APM (Application Performance Management) tool for large scale distributed systems written in Java / PHP/PYTHON). Inspired by Dapper, Pinpoint provides a solution to help analyze the overall structure of the system and how components within them are interconnected by tracing…
read the full pinpoint overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or pinpoint more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and pinpoint has 13,870. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and pinpoint free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pinpoint under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and pinpoint?
jaeger is written in Go and pinpoint 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 pinpoint?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pinpoint if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.