Grafana Beyla vs Zipkin
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Grafana Beyla | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Java |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,135 | ★ 17,465 |
| First released | 2023 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Datadog APM, New Relic | Datadog APM |
What are Grafana Beyla and Zipkin?
Grafana Beyla
Beyla is an eBPF-based tool that automatically instruments applications to produce metrics and traces without any code changes. It exports data in Prometheus and OpenTelemetry formats for existing observability stacks.
- eBPF auto-instrumentation
- No code changes needed
- Prometheus metrics export
- OpenTelemetry traces
Zipkin
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system that gathers timing data needed to troubleshoot latency problems in service architectures. It collects, stores, and visualizes spans across requests.
- Span collection and storage
- Latency visualization
- Dependency diagrams
- Multiple storage backends
Grafana Beyla vs Zipkin: key differences
Grafana Beyla is written in Go, while Zipkin is built with Java. Grafana Beyla is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Zipkin. Zipkin is the more established project (first released 2015), while Grafana Beyla arrived in 2023. Zipkin has the considerably larger community, at 17,465 GitHub stars versus 2,135.
Why pick each one
Choose Grafana Beyla if…
- Instrument without code
- Low overhead
Watch out for
- Requires modern kernel
- Limited language depth
Choose Zipkin if…
- Simple to run
- Long-established project
Watch out for
- Tracing only
- Less active than Jaeger
Frequently asked questions
Is Grafana Beyla or Zipkin better?
Neither is universally better. Zipkin has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Grafana Beyla and Zipkin free and open-source?
Yes. Grafana Beyla is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zipkin under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Grafana Beyla and Zipkin with Docker?
Grafana Beyla: yes. Zipkin: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Grafana Beyla or Zipkin?
Grafana Beyla has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Zipkin. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.