OpenTelemetry
OpenTelemetry (OTel) is the CNCF observability standard for instrumenting software to emit traces, metrics, and logs in a vendor-neutral format. Formed in 2019 from the merger of OpenCensus and OpenTracing, OTel provides SDKs for every major language, a wire-format specification (OTLP), and a collector that translates OTLP into vendor-specific formats.
OTel's value proposition is portability: instrument once, switch backends (Jaeger → Tempo → Honeycomb → Datadog) without re-instrumenting. By 2024 every major observability vendor accepts OTLP, and the ecosystem of automatic instrumentation libraries (for HTTP frameworks, database drivers, message queues) covers most common workloads. The trade-off is a steeper initial learning curve than vendor-specific SDKs and slightly higher overhead in some languages. For new codebases, OTel is the default modern recommendation; for existing codebases on vendor SDKs, the migration is usually worth it before locking in renewal terms.
Related terms
- Observability
Observability is the property of a system that lets engineers understand its internal state from external outputs — answering questions about how the system is behaving without modifying it.
- Distributed tracing
Distributed tracing records the path of a single request as it traverses multiple services, producing a tree-like view of every span — a unit of work in a single service — with timings, parent-child relationships, and metadata.