SHSelfHostIndex

Telegraf 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?
TE Telegraf Plugin-driven server agent for collecting metrics VS ZI Zipkin Distributed tracing system for latency troubleshooting
FeatureTelegrafZipkin
CategoryMonitoring & StatusMonitoring & Status
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageGoJava
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM64 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 17,736★ 17,452
First released20152015
ReplacesDatadog AgentDatadog APM

Why pick each one

Choose Telegraf if…

  • Huge plugin catalog
  • Trivial to deploy
Telegraf details

Choose Zipkin if…

  • Simple to run
  • Long-established project
Zipkin details

Frequently asked questions

Is Telegraf or Zipkin better?

Telegraf is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Zipkin if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Telegraf and Zipkin free and open-source?

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

Can I run Telegraf and Zipkin with Docker?

Telegraf: yes. Zipkin: yes.

Related comparisons