Jaeger review
A focused, self-hosted tracing platform for teams operating microservices.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Jaeger is an open-source distributed tracing platform for developers and platform teams operating microservices and other distributed applications. It collects and visualizes traces, supports trace search and query APIs, and helps teams investigate errors, performance bottlenecks, root causes, and service dependencies. Deployment can run through binaries or container images across web, Windows, macOS, Linux, API, and self-hosted environments.
Jaeger has a free open-source model rather than paid plan tiers. Its published capabilities include OpenTelemetry Protocol ingestion, Zipkin format compatibility, and integrations with Prometheus, Kubernetes, Docker, Kafka, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, and ClickHouse. Teams can select multiple persistent storage backends, use Prometheus-compatible backend metrics, and apply adaptive, head-based, or tail-based sampling. These options make Jaeger a practical fit for organizations that want to shape their tracing architecture around an existing cloud-native ecosystem.
The main tradeoff is scope. Jaeger provides distributed trace collection, visualization, dependency and topology graphs, and service performance monitoring from trace-derived metrics, but its focus remains narrower than a full APM suite: it does not cover real user monitoring or log correlation. Self-hosting also places deployment, storage, scaling, and operational decisions with the engineering or platform team. Choose Jaeger when open-source tracing, Kubernetes support, and storage flexibility are priorities. Choose a broader APM product when one platform must combine tracing with RUM and log correlation.
Jaeger pros and cons
- Where it wins
- OTLP and Zipkin ingestion support
- Topology graphs and trace-derived performance metrics
- Flexible storage and Kubernetes deployment support
- Where it doesn't
- Focused on tracing rather than broader APM coverage
- Self-hosted deployment requires infrastructure ownership
- No RUM or log correlation capabilities
Jaeger fact sheet, pricing and score →
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.
Last updated · How we research and update