> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://otel.fyi/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Zipkin

> OpenTelemetry exporter for Zipkin

# Zipkin Exporter

![Status](https://img.shields.io/badge/status-beta-yellow)

**Available in:** `core`, `contrib`

**Maintainers:** [@MovieStoreGuy](https://github.com/MovieStoreGuy), [@andrzej-stencel](https://github.com/andrzej-stencel), [@crobert-1](https://github.com/crobert-1)

**Source:** [opentelemetry-collector-contrib](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/exporter/zipkinexporter)

## Supported Telemetry

![Traces](https://img.shields.io/badge/traces-beta-orange)

## Overview

Exports data to a [Zipkin](https://zipkin.io/) back-end.
By default, this exporter requires TLS and offers queued retry capabilities.

## Getting Started

The following settings are required:

* `endpoint` (no default): URL to which the exporter is going to send Zipkin trace data. For example: `http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans`.

The following settings are optional:

* `format` (default = `json`): The format to sent events in. Can be set to `json` or `proto`.
* `default_service_name` (default = `<missing service name>`): What to name
  services missing this information.

To use TLS, specify `https://` as the protocol scheme in the URL passed to the `endpoint` property.
See [Advanced Configuration](#advanced-configuration) for more TLS options.

Example:

```yaml theme={null}
exporters:
  zipkin/nontls:
    endpoint: "http://some.url:9411/api/v2/spans"
    format: proto
    default_service_name: unknown-service

  zipkin/withtls:
    endpoint: "https://some.url:9411/api/v2/spans"

  zipkin/tlsnoverify:
    endpoint: "https://some.url:9411/api/v2/spans"
    tls:
      insecure_skip_verify: true
```

## Advanced Configuration

Several helper files are leveraged to provide additional capabilities automatically:

* [HTTP client settings](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/blob/main/config/confighttp/README.md#client-configuration)
* [TLS and mTLS settings](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/blob/main/config/configtls/README.md)
* [Queuing, retry and timeout settings](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/blob/main/exporter/exporterhelper/README.md)

## Configuration

### Example Configuration

```yaml theme={null}
zipkin:
  endpoint: "http://some.location.org:9411/api/v2/spans"
zipkin/2:
  endpoint: "https://somedest:1234/api/v2/spans"
  format: proto
  default_service_name: test_name
  idle_conn_timeout: 5s
  max_idle_conns: 50
  sending_queue:
    enabled: true
    num_consumers: 2
    queue_size: 10
  retry_on_failure:
    enabled: true
    initial_interval: 10s
    max_interval: 60s
    max_elapsed_time: 10m
  tls:
    insecure_skip_verify: true
```

***

*Last generated: 2026-07-06*