head to head · open source
zipkin vs future-agi
zipkin has 17,474 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. future-agi has 2,248 stars, 709 forks, 889 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zipkin leads on adoption by 677% (17,474 vs 2,248 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; future-agi is written in Python under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, future-agi 32%. future-agi 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 | future-agi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 709 |
| 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 future-agi if
- You want the future-agi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and future-agi 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 future-agi
⚠️ Nightly release for early testing. Expect rough edges. Stable version coming out soon — please open an issue if you hit anything. AI Agents hallucinate. Fix it faster. The open source platform for shipping self improving AI agents. Evaluations, tracing, simulations, guardrails, gateway, optimization. Everything runs on one platform and one feedback loop, from first prototype to live deployment. Try Cloud (Free) · Self Host · Docs · Blog · Discord · Discussions Why Future AGI? Most AI agents fail in production, and teams end up stitching together evals, observability, and guardrails that never close the loop…
read the full future-agi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or future-agi more popular?
zipkin has 17,474 GitHub stars and future-agi has 2,248. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and future-agi free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and future-agi under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and future-agi?
zipkin is written in Java and future-agi 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 future-agi?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,474 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose future-agi if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.