head to head · open source
zipkin vs CocoaLumberjack
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. CocoaLumberjack has 13,319 stars, 2,274 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 31% (17,461 vs 13,319 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; CocoaLumberjack is written in Objective-C under BSD-3-Clause. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, CocoaLumberjack 17%. CocoaLumberjack 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 | CocoaLumberjack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Java | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 CocoaLumberjack if
- You want the CocoaLumberjack feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and CocoaLumberjack 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 CocoaLumberjack
CocoaLumberjack is a fast and flexible logging framework, written primarily in Objective C with first class Swift support, for applications targeting macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS and visionOS.
read the full CocoaLumberjack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or CocoaLumberjack more popular?
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars and CocoaLumberjack has 13,319. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and CocoaLumberjack free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and CocoaLumberjack under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and CocoaLumberjack?
zipkin is written in Java and CocoaLumberjack in Objective-C. 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 CocoaLumberjack?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,461 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose CocoaLumberjack if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.