Jaeger vs Grafana Tempo: Which Tracing Backend?
Jaeger offers rich indexing and querying of traces; Grafana Tempo stores traces cheaply in object storage and relies on trace IDs and logs/metrics correlation.
Jaeger indexes spans for flexible search by service, operation, and tags, requiring a search-capable backend. Tempo deliberately skips a heavy index, storing traces in object storage and finding them by trace ID, then leaning on Grafana to correlate from logs and metrics. Jaeger wins on standalone trace search; Tempo wins on cost and the Grafana metrics-logs-traces workflow.
| Jaeger | Tempo | |
|---|---|---|
| Index | Rich span index | Minimal (trace ID) |
| Storage cost | Higher | Low (object store) |
| Search | By tags/service | ID + correlation |
| Ecosystem fit | Standalone UI | Grafana-native |
| Best for | Ad hoc trace search | Cheap traces in Grafana |
Use case and cost
Jaeger suits teams that need to search traces directly by attributes without a Grafana-centric flow. Tempo suits teams already on Grafana who want cheap, scalable trace storage and reach traces via exemplars from metrics and logs.
Ops and CI fit
Tempo is operationally simpler thanks to object-store-only storage; Jaeger needs a search backend like Elasticsearch or Cassandra. Both are containerized and integration-tested in CI, where faster runners shorten builds and trace-pipeline tests.
The verdict
Want rich standalone trace search: Jaeger. Want cheap object-store traces wired into the Grafana metrics-logs-traces stack: Tempo. Choose by whether you query traces directly or correlate from Grafana.