Semantic Coherence: OpenTelemetry – Signal Evidence & AI Readability

OpenTelemetry is an open source observability framework for cloud native
software. It provides a single set of APIs, libraries, agents, and collector
services to capture distributed traces and metrics from your application.OpenTelemetry builds upon years of experience from the OpenTracing and
OpenCensus projects, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the
community.
[IMG: OpenTelemetry overview]
[IMG: Vendor-neutral instrumentation]
[H3] Vendor-neutral instrumentation
Instrument your code once using OpenTelemetry APIs and SDKs. Export telemetry
data to any observability backend—Jaeger, Prometheus, commercial vendors, or
your own solution. Switch backends without touching your application code.
[IMG: Unified observability signals]
[H3] Unified observability signals
Correlate traces, metrics, and logs with shared context that flows through your
entire request path. Get a complete picture of your application’s behavior
across all components and services.
[IMG: Run anywhere]
[H3] Run anywhere
OpenTelemetry is 100% open source and vendor-neutral. Deploy on-premises, in
hybrid environments, or across multiple clouds with full flexibility and zero
lock-in. Move workloads wherever they matter to you.
[H2] Observability Signals
[IMG: Traces]
TracesDistributed traces
[IMG: Metrics]
MetricsMeasurements over time
[IMG: Logs]
LogsTimestamped records
[IMG: Baggage]
BaggageContextual metadata
[H2] OpenTelemetry Features
[IMG: Auto-instrumentation]
[H3] Auto-instrumentation
Get started in minutes with zero-code instrumentation for popular frameworks and
libraries. Automatic instrumentation agents capture traces, metrics, and logs
without modifying your source code.
[IMG: Collector pipeline]
[H3] Collector pipeline
Process, filter, and route telemetry data with the OpenTelemetry Collector.
Deploy as an agent or gateway to receive, process, and export telemetry at scale
with 200+ components.
[IMG: Context propagation]
[H3] Context propagation
Automatically correlate traces across service boundaries. Distributed context
flows through your entire request path, connecting logs, metrics, and traces
into a unified view.
[IMG: Multi-language support]
[H3] Multi-language support
Native SDKs for 12+ languages including Java, Kotlin, Python, Go, JavaScript,
.NET, Ruby, PHP, Rust, C++, Swift, and Erlang. Use your preferred language with
first-class OpenTelemetry support.
[IMG: Stable and production-ready]
[H3] Stable and production-ready
Tracing and metrics APIs are stable across all major languages. Thousands of
organizations run OpenTelemetry in production. Backed by the CNCF and major
cloud providers.
[IMG: Open specifications]
[H3] Open specifications
Built on open, vendor-neutral specifications for APIs, SDKs, and the wire
protocol (OTLP). Transparent governance under the CNCF ensures long-term
stability and community-driven evolution.
[H2] The OpenTelemetry Ecosystem
12+Languages200+Collector Components1009+Integrations101+Vendors
[H2] Trusted by Industry Leaders
[IMG: Alibaba logo]
[IMG: eBay logo]
[IMG: GitHub logo]
[IMG: Heroku logo]
[IMG: Mercado Libre logo]
[IMG: Shopify logo]
[IMG: Skyscanner logo]
[IMG: UiPath logo]
[IMG: VTEX logo]
[IMG: Zalando logo]
View all adopters →OpenTelemetry is a CNCF graduated project.Formed through a
merger of the OpenTracing and OpenCensus projects.
[IMG: CNCF logo]

[H1] Collector
Vendor-agnostic way to receive, process and export telemetry data.
[IMG: OpenTelemetry Collector diagram with Jaeger, OTLP and Prometheus integration]
[H2] Introduction
The OpenTelemetry Collector offers a vendor-agnostic implementation of how to
receive, process and export telemetry data. It removes the need to run, operate,
and maintain multiple agents/collectors. This works with improved scalability
and supports open source observability data formats (e.g. Jaeger, Prometheus,
Fluent Bit, etc.) sending to one or more open source or commercial backends.
[H2] Objectives
Usability: Reasonable default configuration, supports popular protocols,
runs and collects out of the box.Performance: Highly stable and performant under varying loads and
configurations.Observability: An exemplar of an observable service.Extensibility: Customizable without touching the core code.Unification: Single codebase, deployable as an agent or collector with
support for traces, metrics, and logs.
[H2] When to use a collector
For most language specific instrumentation libraries you have exporters for
popular backends and OTLP. You might wonder,under what circumstances does one use a collector to send data, as opposed to
having each service send directly to the backend?For trying out and getting started with OpenTelemetry, sending your data
directly to a backend is a great way to get value quickly. Also, in a
development or small-scale environment you can get decent results without a
collector.However, in general we recommend using a collector alongside your service, since
it allows your service to offload data quickly and the collector can take care
of additional handling like retries, batching, encryption or even sensitive data
filtering.It is also easier to setup a collector than you might think: the
default OTLP exporters in each language assume a local collector endpoint, so if
you launch a collector it will automatically start receiving telemetry.
[H2] Collector security
Follow best practices to make sure your collectors are hosted and
configured securely.
[H2] Status
The Collector status is: mixed, since core Collector components
currently have mixed stability levels.Collector components differ in their maturity levels. Each component has its
stability documented in its README.md. You can find a list of all available
Collector components in the registry.Support is guaranteed for Collector software artifacts for a certain time period
based on the artifact’s intended audience. This support includes, at minimum,
fixes for critical bugs and security issues. See the
support policies
for more details.
[H2] Distributions and releases
For information about Collector distributions and releases, including the
latest release, see Distributions.
[H5] Quick start
Set up and collect telemetry in minutes!
[H5] Install the Collector
[H5] Deploy the Collector
Patterns you can apply to deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector
[H5] Configuration
Learn how to configure the Collector to suit your needs
[H5] Components
OpenTelemetry Collector components - receivers, processors, exporters, connectors, and extensions
[H5] Management
How to manage your OpenTelemetry Collector deployment at scale
[H5] Distributions
[H5] Internal telemetry
[H5] Troubleshooting
Recommendations for troubleshooting the Collector
[H5] Scaling the Collector
[H5] Transforming telemetry
[H5] Architecture
[H5] Extend the Collector
Learn how to extend the OpenTelemetry Collector with custom components
[H5] Benchmarks
[H5] Registry
Exporters, processors, receivers and other useful components for the OpenTelemetry Collector
[H5] Resiliency
How to configure a resilient OTel Collector pipeline
[H2] Feedback
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[H1] Language APIs & SDKs
OpenTelemetry code instrumentation is supported for many popular programming languagesOpenTelemetry code instrumentation is supported for the languages listed in
the Statuses and Releases table below. Unofficial
implementations for other languages are available as
well. You can find them in the registry.For Go, .NET, PHP, Python, Java and JavaScript you can use
zero-code solutions to add instrumentation to your
application without code changes.If you are using Kubernetes, you can use the OpenTelemetry Operator for
Kubernetes to inject these zero-code solutions into your
application.
[H2] Status and Releases
The current status of the major functional components for OpenTelemetry is as
follows:WarningRegardless of an API/SDK’s status, if your instrumentation relies on semantic
conventions that are marked as Experimental in the semantic
conventions specification, your data flow might be subject to
breaking changes.LanguageTracesMetricsLogsProfilesC++StableStableStable-C#/.NETStableStableStable-Erlang/ElixirStableDevelopmentDevelopment-GoStableStableBeta-JavaStableStableStableDevelopmentJavaScriptStableStableDevelopment-KotlinDevelopmentDevelopmentDevelopment-PHPStableStableStable-PythonStableStableDevelopment-RubyStableDevelopmentDevelopment-RustBetaBetaBeta-SwiftStableDevelopmentDevelopment-
[H2] API references
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) implementing the OpenTelemetry API and SDK in a
specific language also publish API references for developers. The following
references are available:C++.NET — Tracing.NET — MetricsErlang/ElixirGoJava — Record Telemetry with APIJavaScriptPHPPythonRubyRustNoteThe list above is aliased to /api.
[H5] SDK Configuration
[H5] C++
[IMG: C++]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in C++.
[H5] .NET
[IMG: .NET]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in .NET.
[H5] Erlang/Elixir
[IMG: Erlang/Elixir]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Erlang/Elixir.
[H5] Go
[IMG: Go]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Go.
[H5] Java
[IMG: Java]
Language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Java.
[H5] JavaScript
[IMG: JavaScript]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in JavaScript (for Node.js & the browser).
[H5] Kotlin
[IMG: Kotlin]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Kotlin.
[H5] PHP
[IMG: PHP]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in PHP.
[H5] Python
[IMG: Python]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Python.
[H5] Ruby
[IMG: Ruby]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Ruby.
[H5] Rust
[IMG: Rust]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Rust.
[H5] Swift
[IMG: Swift]
A language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry in Swift.
[H5] Other languages
Language-specific implementation of OpenTelemetry for other languages.
[H2] Feedback
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[H1] Status
Maturity-level of the main OpenTelemetry componentsOpenTelemetry is made up of several components,
some language-specific and others language-agnostic. When looking for a
status, make sure to look for the
status from the right component page. For example, the status of a signal in the
specification may not be the same as the signal status in a particular language
SDK.
[H2] Language APIs & SDKs
For the development status, or maturity level, of a
language API or SDK, see the following table:LanguageTracesMetricsLogsProfilesC++StableStableStable-C#/.NETStableStableStable-Erlang/ElixirStableDevelopmentDevelopment-GoStableStableBeta-JavaStableStableStableDevelopmentJavaScriptStableStableDevelopment-KotlinDevelopmentDevelopmentDevelopment-PHPStableStableStable-PythonStableStableDevelopment-RubyStableDevelopmentDevelopment-RustBetaBetaBeta-SwiftStableDevelopmentDevelopment-For more details on the specification compliance per implementation, see the
Spec Compliance Matrix.
[H2] Collector
The collector status is: mixed, since
core collector components currently have mixed
stability levels.Collector components differ in their maturity levels. Each component has its
stability documented in its README.md. You can find a list of all available
collector components in the registry.
[H2] Kubernetes Operator
The OpenTelemetry Operator status is
mixed, since it deploys components of
differing statuses.The Operator itself is in a mixed
state with components in v1alpha1 and v1beta1 states.
[H2] Specifications
For the development status, or maturity level, of the
specification, see the following:
Specification Status Summary.
[H2] Feedback
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