OpenObserve vs Zipkin
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
OpenObserve is the stronger AI pick in Observability: it has a visibility score of 3.6 versus 0.3 for Zipkin.
Choose OpenObserve if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (3.6 vs 0.3)
- AI answers describe it more positively (25% vs 0% positive)
- You need a self-hosted or on-premises option
- transparent pay-as-you-go pricing
Choose Zipkin if…
No clear advantage in the published data.
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | OpenObserve | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 3.6% | 0.3% |
| Change vs last week | New | New |
| Rank in Observability | #16 | #36 |
| Share of voice | 1.4% | 0.1% |
| Mentions this run | 8 | 1 |
| Positive in AI answers | 25% | 0% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
OpenObserve 0pp · Zipkin 0pp over 0 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
OpenObserve leads on 2 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
0 engine answers name both brands
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | OpenObserve | Zipkin |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Usage-based | — |
| Entry price | Free; paid from $0.5 / mo | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Deployment | Open-source self-hosted, OpenObserve Cloud, or Bring Your Own Cloud | Self-hosted: run the self-contained executable jar or the openzipkin/zipkin Docker image. The server requires JRE 17 or newer and serves the UI on port 9411 by default. |
| Integrations | 150+ | — |
| Support | Premium support on the Enterprise plan, Architecture reviews on the Enterprise plan, SLAs on the Enterprise plan | Zipkin Gitter chat channel, GitHub issues |
| Founded | 2022 | 2012 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA | — |
| Employees | 11–50 | — |
| Funding | Seed | — |
| Best for | Teams that want to keep all their logs, metrics and traces without Elasticsearch-level storage bills or Datadog-style per-host fees. | Teams troubleshooting latency problems in service architectures |
Plans side by side
OpenObserve
Zipkin
Pricing not available.
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
OpenObserve
- transparent pay-as-you-go pricing
- annual plan discount on ingestion
- free tier with generous daily ingestion
- free trial without credit card
- named among the strongest shortlist options
Zipkin
Profile in progress.
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 100%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “OpenObserve vs Zipkin”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/openobserve-vs-zipkin, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.