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Cloud · head to head

Jaeger vs Qovery

Jaeger logo

Jaeger

Cloud

Open-source end-to-end distributed tracing

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Qovery logo

Qovery

Cloud

Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Jaeger has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Jaeger tracing is only as good as the instrumentation, and partial instrumentation produces misleading gaps; Qovery no plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • They diverge on capability: Jaeger covers Distributed trace search, Qovery covers Bring your own cloud.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Jaeger and Qovery actually diverge.

Attributes where Jaeger and Qovery differ
AttributeJaegerQovery
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Kubernetes, DockerWeb, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Jaeger

  • Distributed trace search
  • Dependency graph
  • Adaptive sampling
  • Pluggable storage

Only in Qovery

  • Bring your own cloud
  • Preview environments
  • Cluster lifecycle
  • Terraform provider
  • MCP server
  • Policy as code

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Jaeger

  • Finding which service in a request path causes the latencynot Qovery
  • Understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wikinot Qovery
  • Debugging failures that only appear under production traffic patternsnot Qovery

Qovery

  • A regulated business that must keep application data inside its own AWS account but has nobody to build a deployment platformnot Jaeger
  • Giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining Terraform and Helm by handnot Jaeger
  • Standardising deployment across AWS and GCP when acquisitions have left the organisation on two cloudsnot Jaeger
  • Replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reachnot Jaeger

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Jaeger

  • Tracing is only as good as the instrumentation, and partial instrumentation produces misleading gaps
  • Storage is the real operational cost: high-volume tracing on Elasticsearch or Cassandra is a cluster to run and pay for
  • Traces alone, without correlated metrics and logs, leave you switching between tools during an incident

Qovery

  • No plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • The GPL-3.0 engine and console do not constitute a self-hostable product, because the control plane and API are closed and the self-hosted option is gated behind Enterprise, so the open licence gives you no exit if the company changes direction.
  • Qovery provisions managed Kubernetes into your account, which means the cloud bill sits on top of the licence and Qovery initiates control plane and ingress controller upgrades on infrastructure your team is accountable for.
  • The company repositioned to agentic infrastructure in June 2026 and now ships a deployment platform, a browser development portal and autonomous coding agents concurrently, so a buyer of the deployment product is not at the centre of the roadmap.
  • Team and Business are capped at two and three connected clusters with fixed 4 vCPU CI runners and no single sign-on on Team, which pushes teams of moderate size onto quoted Enterprise pricing earlier than the plan names imply.

Pricing, plan by plan

Jaeger

Free
  • JaegerFree
    • Full functionality
    • No usage limits
    • Community support

Qovery

On request
  • Team$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 10 users, up to 100 environments, 2 connected clusters
    • 5,000 deployment minutes and 7 day audit logs
  • Business$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 20 users, up to 250 environments, 3 connected clusters
    • 10,000 deployment minutes and 30 day audit logs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom users, environments and clusters
    • Self-hosted or air-gapped control plane
    • On-premises and bring-your-own-Kubernetes

Which should you pick?

Choose Jaeger if

  • You need distributed trace search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes, Docker.
  • You also want dependency graph.
Jaeger review

Choose Qovery if

  • You need bring your own cloud.
  • You work on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
  • You also want preview environments.
Qovery review

Questions people ask

Is Jaeger or Qovery better?
Neither clearly leads. Jaeger starts at Free and Qovery at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Jaeger or Qovery?
Jaeger has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Jaeger and On request for Qovery.
Does Jaeger or Qovery run on more platforms?
Jaeger runs on Linux, Kubernetes, Docker. Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
Can I use Jaeger for free?
Yes. Jaeger has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.
What is Jaeger best used for?
Jaeger is most often used for finding which service in a request path causes the latency, understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wiki, debugging failures that only appear under production traffic patterns. Of those, finding which service in a request path causes the latency and understanding real service dependencies rather than the diagram on the wiki are not what Qovery is typically brought in for.
What can Jaeger do that Qovery cannot?
Jaeger covers Distributed trace search, Dependency graph, Adaptive sampling, Pluggable storage. Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Jaeger: Is Jaeger free?

Yes, open source and CNCF-graduated. Costs are the storage backend you run.

Qovery: Does Qovery run my applications on its own servers?

No. It provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway account, so compute and data stay with your cloud provider and that bill is entirely separate from the Qovery licence.

Jaeger: Do I use Jaeger or OpenTelemetry?

Both, usually. Instrument with OpenTelemetry and use Jaeger to store and query the traces.

Qovery: Can I self-host Qovery?

Only on Enterprise. The deployment engine and console are GPL-3.0, but the control plane is closed source and the self-hosted and air-gapped deployments are commercial Enterprise features.

Jaeger: Does Jaeger handle metrics and logs?

No. It is a tracing system. Metrics and logs need Prometheus, Loki or an equivalent.

Qovery: What does it cost?

Qovery does not publish a rate card. Team and Business are billed on usage and quoted through sales, and Enterprise is fully custom. There is a 14 day trial with no card required.

Qovery: What survives if I stop paying?

The Kubernetes cluster and the workloads keep running in your cloud account, but you lose the console, the deployment pipeline, preview environments and every process built on top of them.

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