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Zipkin vs Glances

A side-by-side editorial comparison of Zipkin and Glances — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

Zipkin vs Glances: at a glance

FeatureZipkinGlances
SectorAnalyticsAnalytics
Velocity score0.02.5
Sparks · 30d00
Top themesdistributed tracing, maintenance only, stale feed, opensearchsystem monitoring, security audit, gpu monitoring, rest api
Last editorial update2h ago2h ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is Zipkin?

Zipkin's last release was January 2025 — a dependency bump, and then nothing.

The recent history is three consecutive maintenance releases whose entire content is dependency and base-image updates: 3.4.3 aligned Maven versions with the Docker images, 3.4.2 and 3.4.1 moved Spring Boot, Netty, Micrometer, Armeria, Alpine and the JRE forward to clear CVEs. The last release carrying a feature was 3.4 in May 2024, which added OpenSearch v2 as a storage backend using the existing ES_-prefixed environment variables.

Read the full Zipkin trajectory →

What is Glances?

Every Glances release this year has carried CVE fixes — the monitoring tool is being audited in public.

Six releases since March, and all but one ship security patches. 4.5.2 alone corrected eight CVEs: CORS defaults allowing cross-origin credential theft, incomplete secrets redaction leaking password hashes and SNMP credentials through /api/v4/args, missing host validation leaving the REST API open to DNS rebinding, SQL injection in the DuckDB export, command injection through process names in action templates, and credential leakage via Zeroconf-spoofed browser autodiscovery. The pattern continues through 4.5.3, 4.5.4, 4.5.5 and 4.5.6, the last fixing a value-level bypass that leaked credentials embedded in URL config values. Alongside it, hardware coverage keeps widening — Intel and AMD GPUs, NVIDIA Jetson, Rockchip NPU and MPP, Raspberry Pi VideoCore.

Read the full Glances trajectory →

Zipkin vs Glances: editorial side-by-side

Z
Zipkin
ANALYTICS
0.0

Zipkin's last release was January 2025 — a dependency bump, and then nothing.

◆ Current state

The recent history is three consecutive maintenance releases whose entire content is dependency and base-image updates: 3.4.3 aligned Maven versions with the Docker images, 3.4.2 and 3.4.1 moved Spring Boot, Netty, Micrometer, Armeria, Alpine and the JRE forward to clear CVEs. The last release carrying a feature was 3.4 in May 2024, which added OpenSearch v2 as a storage backend using the existing ES_-prefixed environment variables.

◆ Where it's heading

This is a project in preservation rather than development. The pattern across the window — feature in May 2024, then three releases of purely defensive dependency work, then silence since January 2025 — describes a mature tracing server being kept safe to run rather than extended. The distributed-tracing work that would once have landed here now largely happens in OpenTelemetry, which Zipkin interoperates with rather than competes against.

◆ Prediction

The feed has produced nothing for nineteen months, so the honest read is that no next release is scheduled. If one comes, the shape of the last three says it will be another dependency and base-image refresh rather than new capability.

G
Glances
ANALYTICS
2.5

Every Glances release this year has carried CVE fixes — the monitoring tool is being audited in public.

◆ Current state

Six releases since March, and all but one ship security patches. 4.5.2 alone corrected eight CVEs: CORS defaults allowing cross-origin credential theft, incomplete secrets redaction leaking password hashes and SNMP credentials through /api/v4/args, missing host validation leaving the REST API open to DNS rebinding, SQL injection in the DuckDB export, command injection through process names in action templates, and credential leakage via Zeroconf-spoofed browser autodiscovery. The pattern continues through 4.5.3, 4.5.4, 4.5.5 and 4.5.6, the last fixing a value-level bypass that leaked credentials embedded in URL config values. Alongside it, hardware coverage keeps widening — Intel and AMD GPUs, NVIDIA Jetson, Rockchip NPU and MPP, Raspberry Pi VideoCore.

◆ Where it's heading

This is what it looks like when a tool that grew up as a local terminal dashboard gets taken seriously as a network service. Nearly every advisory in the window comes from the same root assumption — that the REST API, XML-RPC server and autodiscovery browser are on a trusted network — and the fixes are systematically removing that assumption: authentication warnings on startup, host validation, tighter CORS, redaction that covers values as well as keys. The feature work continues in parallel and is almost entirely about reading more kinds of hardware.

◆ Prediction

The advisories have moved from transport-level exposure toward data-level leaks in specific endpoints, which suggests the remaining audit surface is the export backends and config serialisation rather than the servers themselves. Expect the next release to follow the same shape: hardware plugin additions plus another round of endpoint fixes.

Alternatives to Zipkin and Glances

Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Zipkin or Glances.

See all Zipkin alternatives → · See all Glances alternatives →

Recent activity from Zipkin and Glances

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 6d agoGlancesCredential leak via URL values in /api/4/config
  2. 1mo agoGlancesContainer API latency, ARM GPU monitoring, and an AMP command-execution fix
  3. 3mo agoGlancesRockchip MPP and NPU monitoring, plus three CVE corrections
  4. 4mo agoGlancesLXC/LXD support, ClickHouse export, and two CVE mitigations
  5. 4mo agoGlancesEight CVEs corrected in one release
  6. 5mo agoGlancesStability fixes, Intel GPU monitoring, and container health alerting
  7. 1y agoZipkinMaven versions realigned with the Docker images
  8. 1y agoZipkinSpring Boot, Netty and Micrometer updated to clear CVEs
  9. 2y agoZipkinDependency and base-image updates for CVEs
  10. 2y agoZipkinZipkin 3.4
  11. 2y agoZipkinSpring Boot 3.3 and Alpine 3.20, with an OpenSearch test image

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Zipkin and Glances?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Glances is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is Zipkin better than Glances?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Glances is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to Zipkin?

Top Zipkin alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Zipkin alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/zipkin for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to Glances?

Top Glances alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Glances alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/glances for the full list with editorial commentary on each.