head to head · open source
zipkin vs 0xtools
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. 0xtools has 1,826 stars, 134 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 857% (17,475 vs 1,826 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 Zipkin is a distributed tracing system. It helps gather timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures. Features include both the collection and lookup of this data. If you have a trace ID in a log file, you can jump directly to it. Otherwise, you can query based on attributes such as service, operation name, tags and duration. Some interesting data will be summarized for you, such as the percentage of time spent in a service, and whether operations failed. The Zipkin UI also presents a dependency diagram showing how many traced requests went through each application. This…
read the full zipkin overview →
About 0xtools
xCapture v3.0.3 By Tanel Poder 2025 10 23 This is the first ever release of 0x.tools xCapture tool that is built with modern eBPF ! My previous tools and prototypes were using either bcc , bpftrace or were just sampling and aggregating thread level info from /proc files. Announcing xCapture v3: Linux Performance Analysis with Modern eBPF and DuckDB xtop: Dimensional Performance Analysis of Sampled Thread Activity Requirements Modern eBPF means libbpf , CORE , BTF , BPF iterators , etc. I'll write about my learning journey with proper thank you notes soon. In practice this means you'll need to be on a Linux…
read the full 0xtools overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or 0xtools more popular?
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars and 0xtools has 1,826. 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 (17,475 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.