PHP-FPM Exporter 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 | PHP-FPM Exporter | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 42 · Fair | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Java |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, kubernetes | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 720 | ★ 17,465 |
| First released | 2017 | 2015 |
| Replaces | New Relic PHP, Datadog APM | Datadog APM |
What are PHP-FPM Exporter and Zipkin?
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
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
PHP-FPM Exporter vs Zipkin: key differences
PHP-FPM Exporter is written in Go, while Zipkin is built with Java. Licensing differs — MIT for PHP-FPM Exporter versus Apache-2.0 for Zipkin. PHP-FPM Exporter is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Zipkin. Zipkin is the more established project (first released 2015), while PHP-FPM Exporter arrived in 2017. Zipkin has the considerably larger community, at 17,465 GitHub stars versus 720.
Why pick each one
Choose PHP-FPM Exporter if…
- Easy to add to PHP stacks
- No dependencies
Watch out for
- Requires FPM status enabled
- Metrics only, no UI
Choose Zipkin if…
- Simple to run
- Long-established project
Watch out for
- Tracing only
- Less active than Jaeger
Frequently asked questions
Is PHP-FPM Exporter or Zipkin better?
Neither is universally better. Zipkin 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 PHP-FPM Exporter and Zipkin free and open-source?
Yes. PHP-FPM Exporter is licensed under MIT and Zipkin under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run PHP-FPM Exporter and Zipkin with Docker?
PHP-FPM Exporter: yes. Zipkin: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, PHP-FPM Exporter or Zipkin?
PHP-FPM Exporter has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Zipkin. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.