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Indie alternatives to Zipkin

3 products made by independent developers and small teams that do what Zipkin does, 3 of them with a free plan. Free and open-source options come first.

At a glance

Product	Price	Open source	Self-host	Platforms
Jaeger	Free	Yes	Yes	Self-hosted
SigNoz	Free plan	Yes	Yes	Web, Self-hosted
Uptrace	Free plan	Yes	Yes	Web, Self-hosted

The alternatives

1. Jaeger

Open-source distributed tracing platform

Jaeger is a CNCF project for collecting and visualizing distributed traces to debug latency in microservices.

Free · Self-hosted · Website ↗

2. SigNoz

Open-source observability with logs, metrics and traces

SigNoz is an OpenTelemetry-native observability platform that combines APM, logs, metrics and traces in one app.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted · Website ↗

3. Uptrace

OpenTelemetry APM with traces, metrics and logs

Uptrace is an OpenTelemetry-based APM tool built on ClickHouse for distributed tracing, metrics and logs.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted · Website ↗

Questions

Is there a free alternative to Zipkin?

Yes. 3 of the 3 indie alternatives listed here have a free plan or are free: Jaeger, SigNoz and Uptrace.

Is there an open-source alternative to Zipkin?

Jaeger, SigNoz and Uptrace are open source.

Can I self-host an alternative to Zipkin?

Yes: Jaeger, SigNoz and Uptrace can run on your own server.

What makes these alternatives to Zipkin “indie”?

They are built by independent developers or small teams rather than large companies. Each one is listed because it does the same core job as Zipkin.

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Browse: Monitoring · Self-Hosted

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