head to head · open source
zipkin vs btrace
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. btrace has 5,997 stars, 953 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 191% (17,475 vs 5,997 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; btrace is written in Java under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, btrace 16%. btrace was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (observability, tracing), 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 | btrace | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 953 |
| 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 btrace if
- You want the btrace feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and btrace 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 btrace
BTrace Safe, dynamic tracing for Java applications BTrace dynamically instruments running Java applications to inject tracing code at runtime. No restarts. No recompilation. Production safe. Quick links: Quick Reference · Step by Step Tutorial Why BTrace? Zero downtime Attach to running JVMs without restart Production safe Verified scripts can't crash your application Flexible probes Method entry/exit, timings, field access, allocations Low overhead Bytecode injection with minimal performance impact Supported Java Versions BTrace 3.0 runs on Java 8–25+. Running BTrace against a JVM older than Java 17 is…
read the full btrace overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or btrace more popular?
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars and btrace has 5,997. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and btrace free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and btrace under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and btrace?
zipkin is written in Java and btrace in Java. 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 btrace?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose btrace if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.