jaeger

Jaeger is an open-source distributed tracing platform originally created at Uber and hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, where it became the seventh graduated top-level project in October 2019. It is licensed under Apache 2.0. What it does - Collects trace data from instrumented applications, receiving spans over OTLP both via gRPC (default port 4317) and HTTP (port 4318). - Stores traces in a pluggable storage backend through a storage plugin interface. - Provides a query service and a web UI for searching and inspecting traces; the UI can be run separately from the query component. Architecture as described - OpenTelemetry SDKs in user applications send spans over HTTP or gRPC to the Jaeger Collector. - The Collector writes to storage directly or through a gRPC storage plugin; it can also return sampling responses to the SDK. - The Query service reads from storage, optionally via the same plugin interface, and serves the UI over HTTP. - Version 2 of the platform is built on components from the OpenTelemetry Collector, and the project states that it tries to keep configuration compatible across releases. Quick start A single Docker command runs an all-in-one image containing the UI, collector, query service and in-memory storage, exposing the UI on port 16686 and OTLP on 4317/4318. The README points to a getting-started guide for production deployments and additional options. Supported storage backends and policies The README documents a support policy for backend versions, tying Jaeger's coverage to each backend's own lifecycle: Elasticsearch (Elastic EOL policy), OpenSearch (its release and maintenance policy), Cassandra (maintained Apache release lines) and ClickHouse (current and previous LTS releases). Support means a version is in scope for proactive compatibility fixes; CI may test only a subset of supported versions, and presence in CI does not by itself extend the policy. The project does not support the backend products themselves or vendor distributions, and troubleshooting may require users to upgrade first. Compatibility guarantees - Configuration options may be deprecated with a stated grace period of at least three months or two minor version bumps, whichever is later, before removal. - Go support tracks the Go team's supported versions; support for an older Go minor is dropped after a new minor is released and is not treated as a breaking change. Importable code has moved to internal packages. Community, governance and security The project has open governance and is developed in public, with contributors credited from the wider community. Maintainers are listed in the repository and can be tagged collectively on issues and pull requests. Regular video meetings are open to end users as well as contributors. Related repositories include the UI, the data model/IDL and the documentation source. Third-party security audits are published in a separate jaegertracing repository, and badges in the README point to OpenSSF Scorecard, OpenSSF Best Practices and CLOMonitor status. The README also lists adopters and project sponsors. Who it is for Teams running microservice-based or otherwise distributed systems that need to trace request flows across service boundaries, either in production or while troubleshooting in development. Because instrumentation comes from OpenTelemetry SDKs, users can adopt tracing without depending on a single vendor backend, and they can choose a storage system that matches their existing operational environment.