---
title: "Other Spring autoconfiguration"
source: OpenTelemetry Documentation
source_url: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io
licence: CC-BY-4.0
domain: engineering
subdomain: opentelemetry-docs
date_added: 2026-04-25
---

<?code-excerpt path-base="examples/java/spring-starter"?>

Instead of using the OpenTelemetry Spring starter, you can use the OpenTelemetry
Zipkin starter.

## Zipkin starter

OpenTelemetry Zipkin Exporter Starter is a starter package that includes the
`opentelemetry-api`, `opentelemetry-sdk`, `opentelemetry-extension-annotations`,
`opentelemetry-logging-exporter`, `opentelemetry-spring-boot-autoconfigurations`
and spring framework starters required to setup distributed tracing. It also
provides the
[opentelemetry-exporters-zipkin](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java/tree/main/exporters/zipkin)
artifact and corresponding exporter autoconfiguration.

If an exporter is present in the classpath during runtime and a spring bean of
the exporter is missing from the spring application context, an exporter bean is
initialized and added to a simple span processor in the active tracer provider.
For more details, see the
[implementation (OpenTelemetryAutoConfiguration.java)](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation/blob/main/instrumentation/spring/spring-boot-autoconfigure/src/main/java/io/opentelemetry/instrumentation/spring/autoconfigure/OpenTelemetryAutoConfiguration.java).

{{< tabpane text=true >}} {{% tab header="Maven (`pom.xml`)" lang=Maven %}}

```xml
<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>io.opentelemetry</groupId>
    <artifactId>opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin</artifactId>
    <version>{{% param vers.otel %}}</version>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>
```

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab header="Gradle (`build.gradle`)" lang=Gradle %}}

```kotlin
dependencies {
  implementation("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-exporter-zipkin:{{% param vers.otel %}}")
}
```

{{% /tab %}} {{< /tabpane>}}

### Configurations

{{< tabpane text=true >}} {{% tab "Properties" %}}

Enables the Zipkin exporter (requires `ZipkinSpanExporter` on the classpath):

```yaml
otel:
  exporter:
    zipkin:
      enabled: true # default: true
```

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab "Declarative Configuration" %}}

With [declarative configuration](../declarative-configuration/), the Zipkin
exporter is configured as part of the standard
[declarative configuration schema](/docs/languages/sdk-configuration/declarative-configuration/)
under `tracer_provider.processors`:

```yaml
otel:
  tracer_provider:
    processors:
      - batch:
          exporter:
            zipkin:
              endpoint: http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans
```

{{% /tab %}} {{< /tabpane >}}
