head to head · open source
zipkin vs 0xtools
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. 0xtools has 1,820 stars, 134 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 860% (17,464 vs 1,820 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; 0xtools is written in Python under GPL-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, 0xtools 7%. zipkin 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
| zipkin | 0xtools | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2025-11-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 134 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick zipkin if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick 0xtools if
- You want the 0xtools feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and 0xtools fits your workflow better
About zipkin
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system maintained under the OpenZipkin organization and written in Java, released under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Java and JVM ecosystem as a standalone server, while its instrumentation libraries span many languages. The project gathers the timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures, and it covers both the collection and the lookup of that data.
read the full zipkin overview →
About 0xtools
0x.Tools is a GPL 2.0 Linux performance and observability toolkit, listed in this registry as Python, that gives engineers an X ray view of what every thread on a running system is actually doing, from kernel space up.
read the full 0xtools overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or 0xtools more popular?
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars and 0xtools has 1,820. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and 0xtools free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and 0xtools under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and 0xtools?
zipkin is written in Java and 0xtools in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, zipkin or 0xtools?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,464 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose 0xtools if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.