head to head · open source
zipkin vs voltagent
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars, 3,098 forks, 175 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. voltagent has 10,647 stars, 1,135 forks, 86 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. zipkin leads on adoption by 64% (17,464 vs 10,647 stars). zipkin is written in Java under Apache-2.0; voltagent is written in TypeScript under MIT. zipkin has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, voltagent 11%. voltagent 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 | voltagent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-06 | 2026-08-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 voltagent if
- You want the voltagent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and voltagent 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 voltagent
VoltAgent is an end to end AI Agent Engineering Platform built around an open source TypeScript framework. It lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, distributed through npm packages such as @voltagent/core and @voltagent/mcp docs server , and it is released under the MIT license. The project is roughly one year old, carries 10,619 stars and 1,126 forks on GitHub, and its most recent push landed on 27 August 2026. The platform has two halves: the open source framework, which supplies memory, RAG, guardrails, tools, MCP, voice, and workflow primitives, and the VoltOps Console, which is offered as either …
read the full voltagent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zipkin or voltagent more popular?
zipkin has 17,464 GitHub stars and voltagent has 10,647. zipkin has the larger community by that measure.
Are zipkin and voltagent free?
Both are open source. zipkin is licensed under Apache-2.0 and voltagent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zipkin and voltagent?
zipkin is written in Java and voltagent 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 voltagent?
Choose zipkin if you want the larger community (17,464 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose voltagent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.