head to head · open source
zipkin vs aya
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. aya has 4,817 stars, 476 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped today. zipkin leads on adoption by 263% (17,464 vs 4,817 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 | ★ 4.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 476 |
| 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 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 aya
Aya is an eBPF library for the Rust programming language, built with a focus on developer experience and operability, and it exists so that Rust developers can load, attach, and drive eBPF programs running inside the Linux kernel without depending on C toolchains or C eBPF frameworks.
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or aya more popular?
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars and aya has 4,817. 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 (17,464 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.