head to head · open source
zipkin vs aya
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. aya has 4,892 stars, 484 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 257% (17,475 vs 4,892 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; aya is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, aya 10%. aya 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 | aya | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 484 |
| 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 aya if
- You want the aya 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 aya 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 aya
[![Crates.io][crates badge]][crates url] ![License][license badge] [![Build status][build badge]][build url] [![Book][book badge]][book url] [![Gurubase][gurubase badge]][gurubase url] [crates badge]: [crates url]: [license badge]: [build badge]: [build url]: [book badge]: [book url]: [gurubase badge]: [gurubase url]: API Documentation [![Unreleased Documentation][git docs badge]][git api docs] [![Documentation][api docs badge]][api docs] [git docs badge]: [git api docs]: [api docs badge]: [api docs]: Community [![Discord][discord badge]][chat url] [![Awesome][awesome badge]][awesome aya] Join [the conversation…
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or aya more popular?
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars and aya has 4,892. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and aya free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and aya under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and aya?
zipkin is written in Java and aya 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, zipkin or aya?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose aya if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.