Open Source is Key to Solving Observability Challenges in Modern Environments

Following is a brief summary of Dotan Horovits ?????? ’s presentation—Navigating the Open Source Observability Landscape—at Open Source Summit Europe 2024. Watch the full presentation on YouTube. Dotan is a CNCF Ambassador and an active member of the OTel community who frequently speaks about open source observability at conferences around the world.

The shift toward containers, microservices and cloud-native infrastructures has made managing and troubleshooting systems much harder. The modern observability landscape is vast, with an overwhelming array of tools and frameworks. However, open source solutions are cutting through the noise, helping businesses monitor and optimize complex systems efficiently and without vendor lock-in.

OpenTelemetry (OTel) is one example of a thriving community effort addressing observability today. Originally a merger of OpenCensus and OpenTracing, OTel is now a comprehensive solution for generating, collecting and exporting observability data (metrics, traces and logs). OTel's open, vendor-neutral specification has quickly become an industry standard, with growing support from major vendors and cloud providers.

Another key player, Prometheus, has been a fundamental part of observability for nearly a decade. Focused on metrics, Prometheus offers extensive functionality, from metric scraping to powerful querying with PromQL. While Prometheus itself doesn’t handle dashboards, it integrates well with visualization tools like Grafana. Prometheus 3.0 now features deeper integration with OpenTelemetry, making it an even stronger choice for those building open source observability stacks.

But observability isn’t limited to just metrics, traces and logs. New data signals like continuous profiling, supported by projects like eBPF and tools such as Pixie, are expanding the possibilities for monitoring system performance. Jaeger and OpenSearch also provide valuable distributed tracing and log analytics capabilities, respectively. Together, these open source projects enable organizations to collect, analyze and act on data across increasingly complex systems.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) landscape, though sprawling, is a vital resource for navigating these options. With tools and projects categorized by function, signal type and licensing, it offers a roadmap for organizations exploring open source observability. CNCF’s continued support for both open source and vendor solutions reflects the needs of today’s hybrid tech stacks.

Using open source observability solutions enables companies to embrace flexibility and scalability while avoiding vendor lock-in. In a time where agility is critical, the open source community's collaborative, innovative environment is more valuable than ever. Observability challenges in complex infrastructures are real, but open source solutions are up to the task.