---
id: opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json
version: "1.44.0"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json — Zipkin Span JSON Exporter for OpenTelemetry

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 944.1K/mo

## What it is and what it does

This package is an OpenTelemetry exporter that sends tracing spans to a Zipkin backend using JSON as the wire format. It integrates with the OpenTelemetry SDK to capture distributed traces from your application and serialize them for ingestion by Zipkin, a popular open-source distributed tracing system. The exporter depends on opentelemetry-api and opentelemetry-sdk for trace collection, and requests to handle HTTP communication with the Zipkin server.

It is part of the official OpenTelemetry Python instrumentation ecosystem and is classified as production-stable. The package supports current Python versions (3.10 through 3.14) and is actively maintained by the OpenTelemetry project. Installation is straightforward with no compiled dependencies, and it integrates into standard OpenTelemetry tracer provider setup patterns.

Use it for:

- Send application traces to a Zipkin backend for centralized distributed tracing and latency analysis.
- Monitor microservice interactions and request flows across service boundaries in JSON format.
- Integrate OpenTelemetry instrumentation with existing Zipkin deployments for observability.
- Export trace spans from Python applications for root-cause analysis and performance debugging.
- Build observability pipelines that aggregate traces from multiple services into Zipkin.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Exports OpenTelemetry tracing data to Zipkin using JSON serialization for distributed tracing and observability.

Yes. This is a production-stable, actively maintained exporter with low install friction, no known vulnerabilities, and permissive licensing. Install it if you are using OpenTelemetry in Python and need to send traces to Zipkin. The only condition is that your environment runs Python 3.10 or later and has network access to a Zipkin backend.

## Install

pip install opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json
uv add opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json
poetry add opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json

## Installing opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json

Before you install: Low friction installation with three stable runtime dependencies (opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-sdk, requests). Repository is actively maintained with recent commits and no archived status.

License in practice: Licensed under Apache-2.0 (permissive), allowing use in proprietary and open-source projects with minimal restrictions beyond attribution.

Quickstart:

pip install opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin-json

from opentelemetry.exporter.zipkin.json import ZipkinExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import SimpleSpanProcessor

zipkin_exporter = ZipkinExporter()
tracer_provider = TracerProvider()
tracer_provider.add_span_processor(SimpleSpanProcessor(zipkin_exporter))

Requires Python 3.10 or later; Zipkin backend must be accessible at the configured endpoint.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package supports custom Zipkin endpoint configuration and authentication.
- Performance characteristics when exporting high-volume trace data.
- Compatibility with specific Zipkin server versions.

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 944.1K/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

opentelemetry zipkin exporter, distributed tracing json export, zipkin span exporter, opentelemetry observability, trace data to zipkin, json serialization tracing, zipkin integration opentelemetry, observability, distributed-tracing, opentelemetry

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