Is Qovery or Zipkin better?

Neither clearly leads. Qovery starts at On request and Zipkin at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Qovery or Zipkin?

Zipkin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Qovery and Free for Zipkin.

Does Qovery or Zipkin run on more platforms?

Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes. Zipkin runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.

Can I use Zipkin for free?

Yes. Zipkin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.

What is Qovery best used for?

Qovery is most often used for a regulated business that must keep application data inside its own aws account but has nobody to build a deployment platform, giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining terraform and helm by hand, standardising deployment across aws and gcp when acquisitions have left the organisation on two clouds, replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reach. Of those, a regulated business that must keep application data inside its own aws account but has nobody to build a deployment platform and giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining terraform and helm by hand are not what Zipkin is typically brought in for.

What can Qovery do that Zipkin cannot?

Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider. Zipkin covers Trace collection and search, Dependency diagram, Simple deployment, Pluggable storage.

Cloud · head to head

Qovery vs Zipkin

Qovery

Cloud

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

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Zipkin

Cloud

Distributed tracing system for microservice latency

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Zipkin has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: 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.; Zipkin less active development and smaller community momentum than Jaeger
They diverge on capability: Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Zipkin covers Trace collection and search.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Qovery and Zipkin actually diverge.

Attributes where Qovery and Zipkin differ
Attribute	Qovery	Zipkin
Starting price	On request	Free
Pricing model	quote	Open source, no licence fee
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted

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 Qovery

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

Only in Zipkin

Trace collection and search
Dependency diagram
Simple deployment
Pluggable storage

What people use each for

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

Qovery

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

Zipkin

Adding distributed tracing quickly without standing up heavy infrastructurenot Qovery
Java and Spring Boot estates, where instrumentation support is long-establishednot Qovery
Small deployments where Jaeger is more than the problem requiresnot Qovery

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Zipkin

Less active development and smaller community momentum than Jaeger
Fewer features: sampling, storage options and UI are all more limited
The interface is dated and slower to work with on large trace volumes
Tracing alone still leaves metrics and logs in separate tools during an incident

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Zipkin

Free

ZipkinFree
- Full functionality
- No usage limits
- Community support

Which should you pick?

Choose Qovery if

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

Qovery review

Choose Zipkin if

You need trace collection and search.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
You also want dependency diagram.

Zipkin review

Questions people ask

Is Qovery or Zipkin better?: Neither clearly leads. Qovery starts at On request and Zipkin at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Qovery or Zipkin?: Zipkin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Qovery and Free for Zipkin.
Does Qovery or Zipkin run on more platforms?: Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes. Zipkin runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
Can I use Zipkin for free?: Yes. Zipkin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.
What is Qovery best used for?: Qovery is most often used for a regulated business that must keep application data inside its own aws account but has nobody to build a deployment platform, giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining terraform and helm by hand, standardising deployment across aws and gcp when acquisitions have left the organisation on two clouds, replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reach. Of those, a regulated business that must keep application data inside its own aws account but has nobody to build a deployment platform and giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining terraform and helm by hand are not what Zipkin is typically brought in for.
What can Qovery do that Zipkin cannot?: Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider. Zipkin covers Trace collection and search, Dependency diagram, Simple deployment, Pluggable storage.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Zipkin: Is Zipkin free?

Yes, open source with no licence fee.

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.

Zipkin: Zipkin or Jaeger?

Jaeger has more momentum, more features and CNCF backing. Zipkin is lighter and quicker to stand up, and remains well supported in the Java and Spring ecosystem.

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.

Zipkin: Does Zipkin work with OpenTelemetry?

Yes. OpenTelemetry can export to Zipkin, which is now the usual way to instrument for it.

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.

Qovery vs Zipkin

Qovery

Zipkin

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Qovery

Only in Zipkin

What people use each for

Qovery

Zipkin

Where each one falls short

Qovery

Zipkin

Pricing, plan by plan

Qovery

Zipkin

Which should you pick?

Choose Qovery if

Choose Zipkin if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Qovery

More on Zipkin

Keep looking

Other head to heads