head to head · open source
jaeger vs metrics
jaeger has 23,217 GitHub stars, 3,119 forks, 547 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. metrics has 17,202 stars, 2,275 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. jaeger leads on adoption by 35% (23,217 vs 17,202 stars). jaeger is written in Go under Apache-2.0; metrics is written in JavaScript under MIT. jaeger has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, metrics 13%. 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 | metrics | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-05-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 metrics if
- You want the metrics feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and metrics 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 metrics
Metrics is an infographics generator for GitHub accounts, published under the MIT license and written in JavaScript. It lives in the GitHub ecosystem as a GitHub Action and as a hosted web service, and it produces statistics about a user, an organization, or a repository. The output is rendered as SVG, Markdown, PDF, or JSON, which means the same generated figures can be embedded in a profile readme, attached to a blog post, or consumed by another tool.
read the full metrics overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jaeger or metrics more popular?
jaeger has 23,217 GitHub stars and metrics has 17,202. jaeger has the larger community by that measure.
Are jaeger and metrics free?
Both are open source. jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and metrics under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jaeger and metrics?
jaeger is written in Go and metrics in JavaScript. 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 metrics?
Choose jaeger if you want the larger community (23,217 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose metrics if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.