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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 22 tracing and APM tools. Of these, 8 are open source, 17 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

    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.

    Free plan Free: 30K requests, 1 GB logs, 5-day retention APMErrorsLogsUptime checks
  3. 3

    Atatus

    Full-stack observability SaaS with APM, real user monitoring, logs, infrastructure and synthetic monitoring, priced without per-user fees.

    Paid APMReal user monitoringLogsInfrastructure
  4. 4

    Blackfire

    Profiler and performance monitoring for PHP and Python: on-demand profiles, continuous profiling in production, and performance assertions that can run in CI.

    Paid ProfilingAPM
  5. 5

    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.

    Free plan Free: 50k requests/mo, 1 app APMErrors
  6. 6

    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
  7. 7

    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.

    Free plan Free: 20M events/mo TracesOpenTelemetryAPM
  8. 8

    IBM Instana

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

    Paid Self-hosted APMTracesInfrastructureKubernetes
  9. 9

    Inspector

    Code-level monitoring for PHP apps (Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Drupal) that shows transactions, database queries and errors as they happen.

    Free plan Free: 30K transactions/mo, 3 team members APMErrors
  10. 10

    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
  11. 11

    Lumigo

    Troubleshooting for serverless and container apps with automatic distributed tracing that captures request and response payloads across AWS Lambda and other services.

    Free plan Free: 150k traces, 5 GB logs/mo TracesAPMLogs
  12. 12

    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
  13. 13

    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
  14. 14

    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
  15. 15

    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
  16. 16

    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.

    Free plan Free: 300K transactions, 5k errors, 1 GB logs APMErrorsLogs
  17. 17

    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
  18. 18

    Site24x7

    Zoho's monitoring suite for websites, servers, networks, applications and cloud, with synthetic transactions and RUM; plain uptime checks have a free plan.

    Free plan Free: Uptime checks for 50 resources, email alerts Uptime checksSynthetic checksInfrastructureAPM
  19. 19

    Skylight

    Performance profiler for Ruby on Rails apps that aggregates request traces into per-endpoint breakdowns; free for open source apps.

    Free plan Free: 100,000 traces/mo APM
  20. 20

    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
  21. 21

    Stackify Retrace

    APM for .NET, Java, PHP, Node.js, Python and Ruby apps that combines code-level traces with centralized logs and errors.

    Paid end-of-sale APMLogsErrors
  22. 22

    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
AppSignal Free plan 30K requests, 1 GB logs, 5-day retention No No YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes--
Atatus Paid No No No YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Blackfire Paid No No No ---YesYes-Yes--Yes
DeadBro Free plan 50k requests/mo, 1 app No No ---YesYesYesYes---
Grafana Tempo Free plan Yes Yes Yes YesYesYesNo--No---
Honeycomb Free plan 20M events/mo No No YesYesYesYes--YesYesYes-
IBM Instana Paid No No Yes YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoYes
Inspector Free plan 30K transactions/mo, 3 team members No No ---YesYesYesYes---
Jaeger Free Yes Yes Yes YesYesYesNo--No-Yes-
Lumigo Free plan 150k traces, 5 GB logs/mo No No YesYes-YesYesYesYesYes--
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
Scout APM Free plan 300K transactions, 5k errors, 1 GB logs No No ---YesYesYesYesYes-Yes
Sentry Free plan Developer: 5K errors/month, 1 user No Yes YesYes-YesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Site24x7 Free plan Uptime checks for 50 resources, email alerts No No YesYesYesYesYesYesYes--Yes
Skylight Free plan 100,000 traces/mo No No ---YesYes-----
Splunk AppDynamics Paid No No Yes YesYesYesYesYes-YesYes-Yes
Stackify Retrace Paid No No No ---YesYesYesYesYes-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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