# Zipkin

Distributed tracing system that collects timing data from instrumented services and shows it in a query API and web UI.


Source: https://findsoftware.frbit.cloud/zipkin/
Last reviewed: 2026-11-03
Listed since: 2026-11-03

## Record

### Links

- home: https://zipkin.io
- repository: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin
- docs: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html
- x: https://twitter.com/zipkinproject
- forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/zipkin-user

### Identity

- status: active
- maintainer: OpenZipkin
- maintainerType: unknown
- parent: unknown
- firstRelease: 2016
- hqCountry: unknown

### Kind

- category: analytics
- hosting: java
- language: java
- runtime: jvm
- runtimeMin: jvm 17
- basedOn: unknown

### Content

- contentStore: not applicable
- databases: mysql
- adminUi: not applicable
- headlessApi: not applicable
- templating: not applicable
- i18n: not applicable

### Rendering and deploy

- runsAs: always-on
- renderingModes: not applicable
- installMethod: docker

### License

- licenseModel: open-source
- license: Apache-2.0

### Releases

- currentMajor: 3
- latestReleaseDate: 2026-04-08

### Adoption

- githubStargazers: 17476
- packagistDownloads: not applicable
- npmWeeklyDownloads: not applicable
- contributors: 117
- pluginCount: unknown
- packagistMonthlyDownloads: unknown
- ecosystemsMonthlyDownloads: unknown
- httpArchiveSites: unknown
- wordpressActiveInstalls: unknown
- dependentRepos: unknown
- dependentPackages: unknown

### Sources

- name: https://zipkin.io (read 2026-11-03)
- urls: https://zipkin.io (read 2026-11-03)
- urls: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)
- urls: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (read 2026-11-03)
- license: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)
- licenseModel: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)
- language: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)
- runtime: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/blob/master/README.md (read 2026-11-03)
- runtimeMin: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/blob/master/README.md (read 2026-11-03)
- category: https://zipkin.io (read 2026-11-03)
- databases: https://zipkin.io/pages/architecture.html (read 2026-11-03)
- installMethod: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (read 2026-11-03)
- installMethod: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (read 2026-11-03)
- installMethod: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (read 2026-11-03)
- installMethod: https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html (read 2026-11-03)
- runsAs: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/blob/master/README.md (read 2026-11-03)
- maintainer: https://zipkin.io/pages/community.html (read 2026-11-03)
- currentMajor: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.6.1 (read 2026-11-03)
- latestReleaseDate: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/3.6.1 (read 2026-11-03)
- firstRelease: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin/releases/tag/1.0.0 (read 2026-11-03)
- githubStargazers: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)
- contributors: https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin (read 2026-11-03)

## Notes

Zipkin is a distributed tracing system written in Java. Applications report spans to the Zipkin server over HTTP POST, and the server stores them and serves a query API and a web UI for finding traces by service, operation, tags and duration. The [quickstart](https://zipkin.io/pages/quickstart.html) starts it as a Docker container, as an executable jar, through Homebrew or from source.

The server keeps spans in memory or in a persistent storage backend. The [architecture page](https://zipkin.io/pages/architecture.html) names Cassandra, Elasticsearch and MySQL as backends, and the README says the slim build supports only in-memory and Elasticsearch storage.

## Worth knowing

The web UI has no built-in authentication, as the architecture page states, so access to it is not restricted by the software itself.

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Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attributes are recorded, never scored; absent means unknown.
Credit, in full: FindSoftware, CC BY 4.0