No. 10 of 29 ·eBPF Observability Tools

BCC

Linux · Self-hosted

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Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.4

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely1 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

BCC is ranked #10 of 29 in eBPF observability tools on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

BCC plans and pricing

All plans

BCC Free Apache-2.0 licensed · Linux kernel 4.1 or newer required github.com · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on eBPF observability tools

Free plan: Yes
Deployment model: self-hosted
Network visibility: Yes
Application tracing: Yes
Kernel profiling: Yes
Supported operating systems: Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, openSUSE, RHEL, Amazon Linux, Alpine Linux, and WSL

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The record

Purpose: BCC is a toolkit for creating efficient kernel tracing and manipulation programs using eBPF.
Use cases: BCC is suited to performance analysis and network traffic control.
Languages: BCC provides kernel instrumentation in C, with front ends in Python and Lua.
Workflow: Its features include a shared library workflow, an LLVM BPF backend for JIT, and dynamic loading and unloading of JITed programs.
Kernel hooks: BCC supports socket filters, tc classifiers, tc actions, and kprobes.
Included tools: The project includes self-contained tools for tracing a running system, including examples for disk I/O, processes, networking, and filesystems.
Linux requirement: The installation guide says Linux kernel 4.1 or newer is generally required, along with specified kernel configuration options.
Distribution packages: The installation guide lists packages or installation instructions for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, openSUSE, RHEL, Amazon Linux, Alpine, and WSL.
Package limitation: The guide says Ubuntu Universe and iovisor BCC packages are outdated and that building from source is the way to get an up-to-date packaged version.
Permissions: The FAQ says a BPF program load failure with “Operation not permitted” may require running with sudo.
Security model: The README describes eBPF programs as sandboxed bytecode executed by the kernel and says BPF programs loaded into the kernel cannot crash or run forever.
License: The repository identifies Apache-2.0 as its license.
Support: The project points users to its GitHub issue tracker, the IOVisor mailing list, and the #iovisor IRC channel for project discussion and help.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best eBPF Observability Tools in 2026#10 of 29

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Sources

github.com/iovisor/bcc· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/iovisor/bcc/blob/master/INSTALL.md· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/iovisor/bcc/blob/master/FAQ.txt· checked 4 Oct 2026