Suggestions appear as you type. Use the up and down arrows to choose one and Enter to open it.

This page's audience our own tag's counts — open to see them
–Visits
–Page views
–Clicks to vendors
–Time on page
–Reading now
Clicks to vendors, by tool
  • –
Top countries
  • –
Devices
  • –

– · visits, page views and clicks counted by our own tag, which counts more than our checked analytics; every figure rounded down · how we count

Head-to-head · Distributed Tracing Tools

Jaeger vs VictoriaTraces

  • Updated Oct 2026
  • Both researched from official sources
  • 4 checks side by side
Higher score Jaeger #2 in Distributed Tracing Tools 9.2/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 0 of 3 features Visit Jaeger
VictoriaTraces #8 in Distributed Tracing Tools 8.5/10 Open source ✓ 2 of 3 features Visit VictoriaTraces

Jaeger leads on 0 checks, VictoriaTraces on 0, and 4 are even. Who comes out ahead on the 4 yes/no, price and count checks where we have data for both products. The editor score weighs everything else too.

Our verdict

  • Highest scoreJaeger · 9.2/10
  • Free planonly Jaeger
  • Most featuresVictoriaTraces · 2 of 3

Jaeger scores higher on our rubric for distributed tracing tools: 9.2 against 8.5 out of 10; our editors rank them #2 and #8.

Jaeger is the better fit for open-source tracing with sampling flexibility. VictoriaTraces is the better fit for scalable self-hosted trace storage.

  • Jaeger fits best

    Open-source tracing with sampling flexibility

  • VictoriaTraces fits best

    Scalable self-hosted trace storage

Advertiser disclosure: iTechGuides is reader-supported. Vendors can pay for top positions in our rankings and for a place on other products' pages, and we may earn a commission when you click some links. Bought places stand at the number bought; this page and our disclosure say so. Paying vendors may get a fuller, more detailed review from our editors, and that review can change their score. How we rank.

Side by side

Feature Jaeger 9.2/10 Visit ↗ VictoriaTraces 8.5/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score 9.2 8.5
Ranking #2 in Distributed Tracing Tools #8 in Distributed Tracing Tools
Best for Open-source tracing with sampling flexibility Scalable self-hosted trace storage
Pricing model Free Free
Starting price Free plan Open source
Free plan ✓ (best) Not checked yet
Free trial — —
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted Self-hosted
Support Community, Docs Community, Docs
Integrations 8 integrations 7 integrations
Built for Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Jaeger 0/3 · VictoriaTraces 2/3
OpenTelemetry support Not checked yet ✓ (best)
Service map Not checked yet ✓ (best)
Tail-based sampling Not checked yet —
Specs
Trace retention Not checked yet Not checked yet
Deployment model Self_hosted Self_hosted
Pricing basis Not checked yet Not checked yet
Our review
Pros
  • OTLP and Zipkin ingestion support
  • Head-, tail-, and adaptive sampling modes
  • Dependency graphs plus trace search and query APIs
  • Accepts OTLP over HTTP and gRPC, plus Jaeger and Tempo-compatible APIs
  • Supports single-binary and horizontally scalable cluster deployments
  • Combines trace exploration, dependency queries, retention, alerting, and multi-tenancy
Cons
  • Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure ownership
  • Storage backend selection adds architectural decisions
  • Focused on distributed tracing rather than a broader observability suite
  • Self-hosted deployment requires teams to operate the infrastructure
  • Tail-based sampling is planned rather than currently supported
  • Requires familiarity with the VictoriaMetrics observability ecosystem
Our verdict

Jaeger is an open-source distributed tracing platform for developers and platform teams operating microservice-based and other distributed applications. It collects and visualizes traces, helping teams investigate errors, identify…

Read the review →

VictoriaTraces is an open-source distributed tracing database from VictoriaMetrics for SRE, DevOps, observability, and platform engineering teams managing distributed systems. It ingests OpenTelemetry trace data over OTLP HTTP and gRPC,…

Read the review →
  1. JaegerDistributed Tracing Tools 9.2Free plan
  2. VictoriaTracesDistributed Tracing Tools 8.5Open source

Strengths and trade-offs

  • Jaeger — where it wins

    • OTLP and Zipkin ingestion support
    • Head-, tail-, and adaptive sampling modes
    • Dependency graphs plus trace search and query APIs

    Where it doesn't

    • Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure ownership
    • Storage backend selection adds architectural decisions
    • Focused on distributed tracing rather than a broader observability suite

  • VictoriaTraces — where it wins

    • Accepts OTLP over HTTP and gRPC, plus Jaeger and Tempo-compatible APIs
    • Supports single-binary and horizontally scalable cluster deployments
    • Combines trace exploration, dependency queries, retention, alerting, and multi-tenancy

    Where it doesn't

    • Self-hosted deployment requires teams to operate the infrastructure
    • Tail-based sampling is planned rather than currently supported
    • Requires familiarity with the VictoriaMetrics observability ecosystem

More comparisons

All distributed tracing tools comparisons → · Full ranking →

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

Last updated · How we research and update