Jaeger vs Grafana Tempo
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?
Jaeger
End-to-end distributed tracing for microservices
VS
Grafana Tempo
Easy-to-operate, high-scale distributed tracing backend
| Feature | Jaeger | Grafana Tempo |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, helm | docker, kubernetes, helm |
| GitHub stars | ★ 23,082 | ★ 5,416 |
| First released | 2017 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Datadog APM, New Relic | Datadog APM |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Jaeger or Grafana Tempo better?
Neither is universally better. Jaeger has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Jaeger and Grafana Tempo free and open-source?
Yes. Jaeger is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Grafana Tempo under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Jaeger and Grafana Tempo with Docker?
Jaeger: yes. Grafana Tempo: yes.