JTrace

JTrace is a Java tracing framework designed to collect and export performance and debugging data from Java applications. It uses instrumentation to record spans, timings, and context, enabling end-to-end tracing across services.

The framework relies on bytecode instrumentation via a Java agent or the JVM instrumentation API, allowing both automatic and manual instrumentation. It provides a straightforward API for creating spans, recording attributes, and arranging operations in a trace; it also supports propagating trace context across threads and asynchronous boundaries.

JTrace offers pluggable exporters to common tracing backends such as OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, and Zipkin, or to custom collectors. It supports sampling to reduce overhead and can integrate with popular frameworks and libraries, including Spring, HTTP clients, and gRPC.

Architecturally, JTrace comprises core classes such as Tracer, Span, Context, and Exporter, along with instrumentation modules, a configuration layer, and an optional agent for automatic instrumentation. The design emphasizes low overhead, thread-safety, and ease of use in production environments.

The project is open source and maintained by a community of contributors. It is released under an open-source license, with documentation and example applications to help developers adopt tracing in Java environments.

See also OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin, Java instrumentation.