head to head · open source
zipkin vs cost-xray
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars, 3,093 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. cost-xray has 5,813 stars, 375 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 201% (17,475 vs 5,813 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; cost-xray is written in Python under MIT. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, cost-xray 6%. cost-xray 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| zipkin | cost-xray | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 375 |
| 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 cost-xray if
- You want the cost-xray feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and cost-xray 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 cost-xray
cost xray See what your AI coding agent actually sends to the API — and what each part costs. Most usage tools read local logs. That shows the total cost of a call or session, but it misses the request time context assembled before the model is invoked: system prompts, tool schemas, MCP blocks, tool results, cache reads/writes, and previous thinking blocks. cost xray captures the actual local API traffic for Claude Code and Codex, then attributes tokens and dollars back to the sources inside the request. It shows not just how much a turn cost, but why it cost that much. Home — every session by agent · project ·…
read the full cost-xray overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Monitoring & Observability projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Monitoring & Observability field.
Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or cost-xray more popular?
zipkin has 17,475 GitHub stars and cost-xray has 5,813. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and cost-xray free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and cost-xray under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and cost-xray?
zipkin is written in Java and cost-xray in Python. 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 cost-xray?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,475 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose cost-xray if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.