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Self-hosted tracing and APM tools in 2026

Distributed tracing and application performance monitoring: follow a request across services and find where the time goes. This list has 11 tracing and APM tools. Of these, 8 are open source, 9 have a free plan and 11 can be self-hosted. Checked by hand on 30 September 2026.

  1. 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.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted APMTracesMetricsLogs
  2. 2

    Grafana Tempo

    Distributed tracing backend that stores traces cheaply in object storage and accepts OpenTelemetry, Jaeger and Zipkin data.

    Free plan Open source (AGPL-3.0) Self-hosted TracesOpenTelemetry
  3. 3

    IBM Instana

    Enterprise APM and observability that discovers services automatically and traces every request across them.

    Paid Self-hosted APMTracesInfrastructureKubernetes
  4. 4

    Jaeger

    CNCF distributed tracing platform for collecting, storing and exploring request traces across microservices; version 2 is built on the OpenTelemetry Collector.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted TracesOpenTelemetry
  5. 5

    Odigos

    Uses eBPF to add OpenTelemetry tracing to applications on Kubernetes without code changes and sends the data to any backend.

    Free plan Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted TracesOpenTelemetryKubernetes
  6. 6

    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.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted OpenTelemetryTracesMetricsKubernetes
  7. 7

    Pinpoint

    APM for large Java and PHP systems that traces transactions across services and draws a server map of their calls.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted APMTraces
  8. 8

    Pixie

    Kubernetes observability that uses eBPF to capture service traffic, metrics and CPU profiles automatically; a CNCF sandbox project.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted KubernetesAPMMetrics
  9. 9

    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.

    Free plan Free: Developer: 5K errors/month, 1 user Self-hosted ErrorsAPMTracesReal user monitoring
  10. 10

    Splunk AppDynamics

    Enterprise APM that maps business transactions across services and ties application performance to business metrics; now part of Splunk and Cisco.

    Paid Self-hosted APMInfrastructureReal user monitoring
  11. 11

    Zipkin

    Distributed tracing system that collects timing data from instrumented services and shows where latency builds up across them.

    Free Open source (Apache-2.0) Self-hosted Traces

Side by side

Tool Pricing Free plan Open source Self-hosted Distributed tracingOTLP traces ingestService mapAuto-instrumentationDatabase query analysisError captureLatency and error alertsTrace to log correlationSampling controlsCode-level detail
Apache SkyWalking Free Yes Yes Yes YesYesYesYesYes-Yes-YesYes
Grafana Tempo Free plan Yes Yes Yes YesYesYesNo--No---
IBM Instana Paid No No Yes YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoYes
Jaeger Free Yes Yes Yes YesYesYesNo--No-Yes-
Odigos Free plan Yes Yes Yes Yes-YesYes----Yes-
OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) Free Yes Yes Yes Yes--Yes--NoYes--
Pinpoint Free Yes Yes Yes Yes-YesYesYesYesYesYes-Yes
Pixie Free Yes Yes Yes --YesYesYes----Yes
Sentry Free plan Developer: 5K errors/month, 1 user No Yes YesYes-YesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Splunk AppDynamics Paid No No Yes YesYesYesYesYes-YesYes-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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