head to head · open source
zipkin vs codeburn
zipkin has 17,474 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. codeburn has 11,682 stars, 909 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zipkin leads on adoption by 50% (17,474 vs 11,682 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; codeburn is written in TypeScript under MIT. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, codeburn 8%. codeburn 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 | codeburn | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 909 |
| 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 codeburn if
- You want the codeburn feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and codeburn 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 codeburn
See where your AI spend goes. If CodeBurn shows you something your bill never did, star the repo so other developers find it, and consider sponsoring to keep 41 integrations honest. npx codeburn To keep it: npm install g codeburn or brew install codeburn . Needs Node.js 22.13+. Desktop app 0.9.25. The macOS builds are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple. The problem Your bill gives you a month total. It does not break that down by project, by model or by task, and it does not show which part of it was wasted. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the rest each write a session file every time you use them…
read the full codeburn overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or codeburn more popular?
zipkin has 17,474 GitHub stars and codeburn has 11,682. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and codeburn free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and codeburn under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and codeburn?
zipkin is written in Java and codeburn in TypeScript. 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 codeburn?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,474 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose codeburn if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.