Upptime 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?
Upptime
GitHub-powered uptime monitor and status page
VS
Zipkin
Distributed tracing system for latency troubleshooting
| Feature | Upptime | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Monitoring & Status | Monitoring & Status |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Markdown | Java |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | one-click, source | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 17,114 | ★ 17,452 |
| First released | 2020 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Statuspage, Pingdom | Datadog APM |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is Upptime or Zipkin better?
Neither is universally better. Zipkin has the larger community, while Upptime is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Upptime and Zipkin free and open-source?
Yes. Upptime is licensed under MIT and Zipkin under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Upptime and Zipkin with Docker?
Upptime: check the project docs for container support. Zipkin: yes.