Request tracing is an essential tool for gaining insights into distributed systems by tracking operations across various components, allowing engineers to identify bottlenecks and latency issues. It complements logs and metrics, forming a comprehensive telemetry solution that aids in debugging and resolving production problems. Zipkin and Jaeger are two popular request-tracing tools, each with its unique strengths. Zipkin, inspired by Dapper and developed by Twitter, is now maintained by a dedicated community, while Jaeger, built by Uber, is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation project. Both offer similar architectures with a focus on capturing and analyzing trace data, but Jaeger holds an edge in library instrumentation by leveraging Open Tracing libraries. Deployment considerations are crucial; Jaeger integrates seamlessly with Kubernetes environments due to its CNCF affiliation, whereas Zipkin's simpler, single-process model may be better suited for non-containerized settings. The choice between the two depends on existing infrastructure, language support, and community engagement, with Jaeger's compatibility with Zipkin's API offering additional flexibility.