head to head · open source
jaeger vs pup
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars, 3,222 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. pup has 1,040 stars, 138 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 2,147% (23,368 vs 1,040 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; pup is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, pup 13%. 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 | pup | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 138 |
| 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 pup if
- You want the pup feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pup 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 pup
:dog2: Give Your Agent a Puppy: Introducing Pup CLI Every AI agent needs a loyal companion. Meet Pup — the CLI that gives your agents full access to Datadog's observability platform (because even autonomous agents need good tooling, not just tricks). What is Pup? A comprehensive, AI agent ready CLI covering a wide range of Datadog product domains. We've unleashed the full power of Datadog's APIs so your agents can fetch metrics, sniff out errors, and track down issues without barking up the wrong API tree. AI agents are the fastest growing interface for infrastructure management. Companies like Vercel and AWS…
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or pup more popular?
jaeger has 23,368 GitHub stars and pup has 1,040. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and pup free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pup under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and pup?
jaeger is written in Go and pup in Rust. 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 pup?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,368 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pup if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.