# openzipkin/zipkin

Zipkin is a distributed tracing system

Repository: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/zipkin
Homepage: https://zipkin.io/
Language: Java
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: zipkin, distributed-tracing, tracing, openzipkin, observability
Last push: 2026-08-06T04:10:29+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 96, release rhythm 66, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5201, "days_push": 27, "days_rel": 147, "gap_med": 55.0, "n_releases_24m": 7}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 17453, forks 3102 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:19.844973+00:00)

## What it is
Zipkin is a distributed tracing system that collects and stores timing data from instrumented applications to help troubleshoot latency in service architectures. It provides a web UI for querying traces by ID, service, tags, or duration, plus dependency diagrams showing request flow between services.

## Use cases
- troubleshoot latency problems in microservices
- find slow requests across a distributed system
- view service dependency diagrams
- look up a trace by trace ID from a log file
- collect spans via HTTP or Kafka
- self-host a tracing backend for OpenTelemetry data

## When to choose
- you need a mature, self-contained tracing server with a built-in UI
- you want flexible storage backends like Cassandra or Elasticsearch
- you report spans over HTTP, Kafka, gRPC, or RabbitMQ
- you need a lightweight jar or Docker deployment

## When to avoid
- you need metrics and logs alongside traces in one observability platform
- you want a fully managed cloud tracing service
- your environment cannot run Java 17+ or Docker

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: tracing, monitoring, http-server, search-engine
- domain: monitoring, microservices
- platform: jvm, self-hosted, cross-platform
- tags: distributed-tracing, observability, latency-troubleshooting, opentelemetry-compatible, service-dependency-graph, devops, docker, web-server

## Member repositories
- openzipkin/zipkin (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:19.844973+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:02:57.057498+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:19.844973+00:00, sha 71b2a2adbd26)
  - homepage: https://zipkin.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:01:02.107070+00:00, sha ca5ec21a4f49)
  - site_page: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:01:02.116067+00:00, sha 4cc7a6a83156)
  - site_page: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart (fetched 2026-08-29T08:01:02.117833+00:00, sha 4cc7a6a83156)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.