Tracing and APM tools with a free plan in 2026
Distributed tracing and application performance monitoring: follow a request across services and find where the time goes. This list has 17 tracing and APM tools. Of these, 8 are open source, 17 have a free plan and 9 can be self-hosted. Checked by hand on 30 September 2026.
- 1
Apache SkyWalking
APM for distributed systems from the Apache Software Foundation: agents and service mesh probes collect traces, metrics and logs and draw service topology maps.
- 2
AppSignal
APM for Ruby, Elixir, Node.js, Python, PHP, Go and front-end JavaScript that combines performance, errors, logs, host metrics, uptime checks and cron check-ins.
- 3
DeadBro
APM for Ruby on Rails apps installed as a gem: request traces, slow SQL and N+1 query detection, and error tracking, priced by requests.
- 4
Grafana Tempo
Distributed tracing backend that stores traces cheaply in object storage and accepts OpenTelemetry, Jaeger and Zipkin data.
- 5
Honeycomb
Observability built for high-cardinality event data: query traces and events by any field to work out why production behaves the way it does.
- 6
Inspector
Code-level monitoring for PHP apps (Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Drupal) that shows transactions, database queries and errors as they happen.
- 7
Jaeger
CNCF distributed tracing platform for collecting, storing and exploring request traces across microservices; version 2 is built on the OpenTelemetry Collector.
- 8
Lumigo
Troubleshooting for serverless and container apps with automatic distributed tracing that captures request and response payloads across AWS Lambda and other services.
- 9
Odigos
Uses eBPF to add OpenTelemetry tracing to applications on Kubernetes without code changes and sends the data to any backend.
- 10
OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI)
Zero-code eBPF instrumentation that produces traces and RED metrics for HTTP, gRPC, database and messaging calls from Linux processes. Started as Grafana Beyla and was donated to OpenTelemetry.
- 11
Pinpoint
APM for large Java and PHP systems that traces transactions across services and draws a server map of their calls.
- 12
Pixie
Kubernetes observability that uses eBPF to capture service traffic, metrics and CPU profiles automatically; a CNCF sandbox project.
- 13
Scout APM
APM for Ruby, Python, PHP and Elixir apps that points to slow endpoints, N+1 queries and memory bloat, with error and log monitoring included.
- 14
Sentry
Captures exceptions and crashes from web, mobile and backend SDKs, groups them into issues with stack traces and releases, and alerts owners. Adds tracing, replays and logs.
- 15
Site24x7
Zoho's monitoring suite for websites, servers, networks, applications and cloud, with synthetic transactions and RUM; plain uptime checks have a free plan.
- 16
Skylight
Performance profiler for Ruby on Rails apps that aggregates request traces into per-endpoint breakdowns; free for open source apps.
- 17
Zipkin
Distributed tracing system that collects timing data from instrumented services and shows where latency builds up across them.
Side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free plan | Open source | Self-hosted | Distributed tracing | OTLP traces ingest | Service map | Auto-instrumentation | Database query analysis | Error capture | Latency and error alerts | Trace to log correlation | Sampling controls | Code-level detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apache SkyWalking | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | - | Yes | Yes |
| AppSignal | Free plan | 30K requests, 1 GB logs, 5-day retention | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - |
| DeadBro | Free plan | 50k requests/mo, 1 app | No | No | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - |
| Grafana Tempo | Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | - | - | No | - | - | - |
| Honeycomb | Free plan | 20M events/mo | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | - |
| Inspector | Free plan | 30K transactions/mo, 3 team members | No | No | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - |
| Jaeger | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | - | - | No | - | Yes | - |
| Lumigo | Free plan | 150k traces, 5 GB logs/mo | No | No | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - |
| Odigos | Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | Yes | - |
| OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | Yes | - | - | No | Yes | - | - |
| Pinpoint | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes |
| Pixie | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | Yes |
| Scout APM | Free plan | 300K transactions, 5k errors, 1 GB logs | No | No | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes |
| Sentry | Free plan | Developer: 5K errors/month, 1 user | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Site24x7 | Free plan | Uptime checks for 50 resources, email alerts | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | - | Yes |
| Skylight | Free plan | 100,000 traces/mo | No | No | - | - | - | Yes | Yes | - | - | - | - | - |
| Zipkin | Free | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | - | Yes | - | - | - | No | - | - | - |
Yes: confirmed in the tool's documentation. No: documented as not offered. -: not confirmed. Plans and prices change; check each tool's own site before you decide.
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