head to head · open source
zipkin vs node_exporter
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. node_exporter has 13,785 stars, 2,710 forks, 314 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 27% (17,461 vs 13,785 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 | 2026-09-03 |
| 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 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 node_exporter
Node exporter is a Prometheus exporter for hardware and OS metrics exposed by \ NIX kernels. It is written in Go and ships with pluggable metric collectors, so the set of measurements it gathers can be tuned per host rather than fixed at build time. The project lives in the Prometheus ecosystem, is published under the Apache 2.0 license, and has been developed for roughly thirteen years, with the repository showing 13,782 stars and 2,708 forks at the time of writing.
read the full node_exporter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or node_exporter more popular?
zipkin has 17,461 GitHub stars and node_exporter has 13,785. 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 (17,461 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.