head to head · open source
zipkin vs Cachet
zipkin has 17,476 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Cachet has 15,263 stars, 1,631 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zipkin leads on adoption by 14% (17,476 vs 15,263 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Cachet is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, Cachet 11%. Cachet was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Cachet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 15K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 Cachet if
- You want the Cachet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Cachet 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 Cachet
Cachet, the open source self hosted status page system. Cachet 3.x Announcement For more information on the Cachet rebuild and our plans for 3.x, you can read the announcement here. Requirements PHP 8.3 or later Composer A supported database: MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite Installation, Upgrades and Documentation You can find documentation at Here are some useful quick links: Installing Cachet Demo To test out the v3 demo, you can log in to the Cachet dashboard with the following credentials: Email: test@test.com Password: test123 Note The demo automatically resets every 30 minutes. Sponsors Security…
read the full Cachet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or Cachet more popular?
zipkin has 17,476 GitHub stars and Cachet has 15,263. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and Cachet free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Cachet has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between zipkin and Cachet?
zipkin is written in Java and Cachet in PHP. 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 Cachet?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,476 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Cachet if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.