Datadog
Observability platform for metrics, logs, and traces
Uptrace
Unified tracing, metrics, and logs platform for modern applications
Uptrace provides a single UI for OpenTelemetry traces, metrics, and logs, with dashboards, alerting, and integrations, delivering high‑throughput observability at low cost.
Overview
Overview
Uptrace is a self‑hosted observability suite that consolidates distributed tracing, metrics, and logs into a single interface. Built on the OpenTelemetry framework and powered by ClickHouse for data storage (with PostgreSQL for metadata), it can ingest billions of spans and metrics while keeping storage costs low.
Who it’s for & deployment
Ideal for engineering teams that need full‑stack visibility without relying on third‑party SaaS, Uptrace runs on a single server or scales across nodes. Quick start options include a Docker‑based local run or a cloud demo for evaluation. Configuration is managed via YAML, and SSO is supported through OpenID Connect providers such as Keycloak, Google Cloud, and Cloudflare.
Core capabilities
The platform offers an intuitive query builder, over 50 auto‑generated dashboards, service graphs, and alerting with notifications to Email, Slack, WebHook, and AlertManager. It also integrates seamlessly with Grafana, acting as a Tempo and Prometheus datasource, and supports data ingestion from OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Vector, FluentBit, CloudWatch, and more.
Highlights
Single UI for traces, metrics, and logs
50+ auto‑generated dashboards
SQL‑like span queries and PromQL‑like metric queries
High‑throughput ingestion (10K+ spans/sec) with strong compression
Pros
- Unified observability reduces tool sprawl
- Low operational cost thanks to efficient compression
- Broad ingestion support (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, etc.)
- Grafana compatibility for existing dashboard investments
Considerations
- Requires both ClickHouse and PostgreSQL to be provisioned
- AGPL‑3.0 license may limit commercial redistribution
- UI is functional but less polished than some hosted SaaS
- Advanced scaling may need manual tuning and hardware planning
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Uptrace, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
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Fit guide
Great for
- Teams needing self‑hosted full‑stack observability
- Organizations already using OpenTelemetry instrumentation
- High‑volume trace environments that demand efficient storage
- Developers who prefer SQL‑style analysis of trace data
Not ideal when
- Small projects preferring turnkey SaaS solutions
- Environments unable to run ClickHouse or PostgreSQL
- Teams requiring permissive licenses like MIT/BSD
- Users looking for built‑in AI anomaly detection
How teams use it
Microservice latency troubleshooting
Correlate traces, metrics, and logs to pinpoint slow endpoints and reduce response times.
Capacity planning for high‑traffic APIs
Analyze span rates and metric trends to forecast resource needs and avoid bottlenecks.
Alert‑driven incident response
Set up alerts on error rates or latency spikes, receive notifications via Slack/email, and quickly investigate root cause.
Custom dashboard for business KPIs
Create dashboards that combine business metrics with technical traces for end‑to‑end visibility.
Tech snapshot
Go54%
Vue34%
TypeScript9%
HTML2%
Python1%
Shell1%
Frequently asked questions
What data sources does Uptrace ingest?
Uptrace accepts data via OpenTelemetry SDKs, Prometheus, Vector, FluentBit, CloudWatch and other standard collectors.
Do I need to run both ClickHouse and PostgreSQL?
Yes, ClickHouse stores trace, metric, and log data while PostgreSQL holds metadata such as metric names and alert definitions.
Can Uptrace be used with Grafana?
Yes, you can configure Grafana to use Uptrace as a Tempo and Prometheus datasource.
Is there a hosted version?
A cloud demo is available for quick evaluation; production deployments are self‑hosted.
What licensing applies?
Uptrace is released under the AGPL‑3.0 license.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 4,043
- Watchers
- 4,043
- Forks
- 198
LicenseAGPL-3.0
Repo age4 years old
Last commit2 months ago
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languageGo
Last synced 12 hours ago