head to head · open source
zipkin vs kubeshark
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. kubeshark has 12,082 stars, 549 forks, 149 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 45% (17,461 vs 12,082 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; kubeshark is written in Go under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, kubeshark 5%. kubeshark 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 | kubeshark | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 549 |
| 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 kubeshark if
- You want the kubeshark feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kubeshark 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 kubeshark
Kubeshark is an Apache 2.0, eBPF powered network observability tool for Kubernetes that indexes cluster wide L4/L7 traffic with full Kubernetes context and makes that traffic queryable by AI agents through the Model Context Protocol and by humans through a real time dashboard.
read the full kubeshark overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or kubeshark more popular?
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars and kubeshark has 12,082. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and kubeshark free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kubeshark under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and kubeshark?
zipkin is written in Java and kubeshark 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 kubeshark?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,461 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kubeshark if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.