head to head · open source
zipkin vs ratel
zipkin has 17,473 GitHub stars, 3,095 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. ratel has 563 stars, 32 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 3,004% (17,473 vs 563 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; ratel is written in TypeScript under MIT. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, ratel 6%. ratel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (observability), 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 | ratel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 563 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-11-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 32 |
| 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 ratel if
- You want the ratel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ratel 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 ratel
Ratel See what your AI agent gets wrong, and what to change. On your own infrastructure. Docs • Skills • Discord Introduction Ratel is a self hosted platform for AI agents. Your agent sends it traces and its catalog of tools and skills. Ratel reads that traffic and shows you what the agent gets wrong, what people ask it for, and which changes would make it find and finish more. It is for anyone building or running an agent who wants to see how it behaves and keep that data on their own machines. It runs as one application and one Postgres database, and it needs nothing else: Console: the pages you read and act…
read the full ratel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or ratel more popular?
zipkin has 17,473 GitHub stars and ratel has 563. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and ratel free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ratel under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and ratel?
zipkin is written in Java and ratel in TypeScript. 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 ratel?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,473 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ratel if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.