head to head · open source
jaeger vs kubeshark
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars, 3,122 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kubeshark has 12,082 stars, 549 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 92% (23,223 vs 12,082 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kubeshark is written in Go under Apache-2.0. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, kubeshark 5%. jaeger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | kubeshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 549 |
| 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 kubeshark if
- You want the kubeshark feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubeshark 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 kubeshark
Kubeshark is an Apache 2.0, eBPF powered network observability tool for Kubernetes that indexes cluster wide L4/L7 traffic with full Kubernetes context and makes that traffic queryable by AI agents through the Model Context Protocol and by humans through a real time dashboard.
read the full kubeshark overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or kubeshark more popular?
jaeger has 23,223 GitHub stars and kubeshark has 12,082. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and kubeshark free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kubeshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and kubeshark?
jaeger is written in Go and kubeshark in Go. 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 kubeshark?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,223 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kubeshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.