head to head · open source
zipkin vs node_exporter
zipkin has 17,476 GitHub stars, 3,092 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. node_exporter has 13,892 stars, 2,743 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zipkin leads on adoption by 26% (17,476 vs 13,892 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; node_exporter is written in Go under Apache-2.0. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, node_exporter 20%. node_exporter 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 | node_exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| 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 node_exporter if
- You want the node_exporter 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 node_exporter 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 node_exporter
Node exporter [ ][quay] [ ][hub] [ ][goreportcard] Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by \ NIX kernels, written in Go with pluggable metric collectors. The Windows exporter is recommended for Windows users. To expose NVIDIA GPU metrics, prometheus dcgm can be used. Installation and Usage If you are new to Prometheus and node exporter there is a simple step by step guide. The node exporter listens on HTTP port 9100 by default. See the help output for more options. Linux distribution packages On Enterprise Linux (RHEL, CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux) and Fedora, node exporter is…
read the full node_exporter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or node_exporter more popular?
zipkin has 17,476 GitHub stars and node_exporter has 13,892. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and node_exporter free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and node_exporter under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and node_exporter?
zipkin is written in Java and node_exporter 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 node_exporter?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,476 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose node_exporter if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.