head to head · open source
zipkin vs dozzle
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. dozzle has 14,410 stars, 617 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zipkin leads on adoption by 21% (17,461 vs 14,410 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; dozzle is written in Go under MIT. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, dozzle 4%. dozzle 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 | dozzle | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 617 |
| 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 dozzle if
- You want the dozzle feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dozzle 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 dozzle
Dozzle is a lightweight, web based application for monitoring Docker logs in real time. It is written in Go and distributed under the MIT license, and it lives in the container and orchestration ecosystem alongside Docker, Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, which its topics and tagline both name. The project ships as a small container — roughly 7 MB compressed — and its user interface is built with Vue.js. It exposes a browser view over logs rather than writing them anywhere: the README states plainly that Dozzle stores no log files and exists purely for live log viewing.
read the full dozzle overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or dozzle more popular?
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars and dozzle has 14,410. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and dozzle free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and dozzle under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and dozzle?
zipkin is written in Java and dozzle in Go. 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 dozzle?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,461 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose dozzle if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.