head to head · open source
zipkin vs minitrace-rust
zipkin has 17,473 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. minitrace-rust has 750 stars, 46 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 2,230% (17,473 vs 750 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; minitrace-rust is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, minitrace-rust 6%. minitrace-rust was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (tracing), 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 | minitrace-rust | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 750 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 46 |
| 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 minitrace-rust if
- You want the minitrace-rust feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and minitrace-rust 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 minitrace-rust
minitrace has become fastrace! We decide to continue the development of minitrace under a new organization structure for better community governance. fastrace is maintained by the same maintainers of minitrace, so that we encourage all users to just migrate. Meanwhile, minitrace will not be maintained any more. See for details. Migrate to fastrace Simply substitute the occurance of minitrace with fastrace in your source code, like:
read the full minitrace-rust overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or minitrace-rust more popular?
zipkin has 17,473 GitHub stars and minitrace-rust has 750. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and minitrace-rust free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and minitrace-rust under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and minitrace-rust?
zipkin is written in Java and minitrace-rust in Rust. 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 minitrace-rust?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,473 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose minitrace-rust if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.