# Jaeger Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/jaeger/ 5 people recommended Jaeger in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 12 months, in 5 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free, open-source tracing tool people call solid, simple and easy to self-host. One critic finds it heavy to run. Summary written by Claude from 9 comments. ## Why people recommend it - Easily self-hosted open-source project (2 comments in the sample): "Prometheus and Jaeger are very solid, battle-hardened, popular, well-maintained, easily self-hosted open-source projects." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45936019)) "you can send traces to some self-hosted FOSS visualizer, like Jaeger" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46549457)) - Simple, not complicated (1 comment in the sample): "pretty simple for tracing only" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45846189)) ## Other observability platforms people recommend - [Grafana](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grafana/): 51 recommend, 13 mixed, 37 criticize - [Prometheus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/prometheus/): 38 recommend, 7 mixed, 21 criticize - [Datadog](https://hackerapproved.com/p/datadog/): 23 recommend, 16 mixed, 35 criticize - [Sentry](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sentry/): 18 recommend, 8 mixed, 25 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Jaeger", https://hackerapproved.com/p/jaeger/ (5 recommend, 1 mixed, 3 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.