InfluxDB vs Zipkin

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureInfluxDBZipkin
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageRustJava
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 31,683★ 17,452
First released20132015
ReplacesDatadog, AWS TimestreamDatadog APM

Why pick each one

Choose InfluxDB if…

  • Excellent for IoT and metrics
  • Rich tooling and integrations
InfluxDB details

Choose Zipkin if…

  • Simple to run
  • Long-established project
Zipkin details

Frequently asked questions

Is InfluxDB or Zipkin better?

Neither is universally better. InfluxDB has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are InfluxDB and Zipkin free and open-source?

Yes. InfluxDB is licensed under MIT and Zipkin under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run InfluxDB and Zipkin with Docker?

InfluxDB: yes. Zipkin: yes.

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