Jaeger vs PHP-FPM Exporter
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted monitoring & status options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Jaeger | PHP-FPM Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 42 · Fair |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, binary, kubernetes |
| GitHub stars | ★ 23,234 | ★ 720 |
| First released | 2017 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Datadog APM, New Relic | New Relic PHP, Datadog APM |
What are Jaeger and PHP-FPM Exporter?
Jaeger
Jaeger is a distributed tracing system used to monitor and troubleshoot transactions in complex microservice architectures. It supports trace collection, sampling, and root-cause analysis through a rich UI.
- Distributed transaction tracing
- Service dependency graphs
- Adaptive sampling
- OpenTelemetry compatible
PHP-FPM Exporter
PHP-FPM Exporter scrapes the PHP-FPM status page and exposes pool metrics such as active processes, request queue length, and slow requests as Prometheus metrics. It helps operators monitor PHP application worker health.
- FPM pool process metrics
- Slow request tracking
- Single static binary
- Works with multiple pools
Jaeger vs PHP-FPM Exporter: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Jaeger versus MIT for PHP-FPM Exporter. PHP-FPM Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Jaeger. Jaeger has the considerably larger community, at 23,234 GitHub stars versus 720.
Why pick each one
Choose Jaeger if…
- CNCF graduated project
- Mature and widely adopted
Watch out for
- Storage backend required
- Focused only on traces
Choose PHP-FPM Exporter if…
- Easy to add to PHP stacks
- No dependencies
Watch out for
- Requires FPM status enabled
- Metrics only, no UI
Frequently asked questions
Is Jaeger or PHP-FPM Exporter better?
Neither is universally better. Jaeger has the larger community, while PHP-FPM Exporter is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Jaeger and PHP-FPM Exporter free and open-source?
Yes. Jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PHP-FPM Exporter under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Jaeger and PHP-FPM Exporter with Docker?
Jaeger: yes. PHP-FPM Exporter: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Jaeger or PHP-FPM Exporter?
PHP-FPM Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Jaeger. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.