OpenObserve is a cloud-native observability platform designed to simplify log, metric, trace, and analytics management. Built as an alternative to Elasticsearch, Splunk, and Datadog, OpenObserve offers a high-performance, cost-effective solution with petabyte-scale capabilities.
Key Features:
Comprehensive Observability: Supports logs, metrics, traces, RUM (Real User Monitoring), error tracking, and session replay.
OpenTelemetry Integration: Fully compatible with OTLP for seamless collection of distributed tracing data.
Advanced Visualization: Features over 18 chart types for dashboards, reports, and alerts to enable deep insights.
Stream Processing Pipelines: Enables enrichment, redaction, normalization, and transformation of data on the fly.
SQL and PromQL Querying: Supports log and trace querying with SQL and metrics analysis with SQL and PromQL.
Versatile Storage Options: Supports local disk, S3, MinIO, GCS, Azure Blob Storage for flexible deployment needs.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for DevOps engineers, site reliability engineers (SREs), and developers who need a scalable observability solution. OpenObserve reduces storage costs by up to 140x compared to Elasticsearch while offering superior performance and ease of use. Its intuitive UI eliminates the need for complex configurations, making it faster to deploy and simpler to operate than traditional alternatives.
Installable via winget, OpenObserve provides a straightforward path to achieving modern observability at scale without the complexity of legacy systems.
README
Modern observability platform: 10x easier, 140x lower storage cost, high performance, petabyte scale - Elasticsearch/Splunk/Datadog alternative for logs, metrics, traces, frontend monitoring and more.
OpenObserve (O2 for short) is a cloud-native observability platform built specifically for logs, metrics, traces, analytics, frontend monitoring and more. Start with a single binary that scales to terabytes, or deploy in High Availability mode for petabyte-scale workloads.
Why OpenObserve?
1. Simplicity
It is straightforward and easy to operate compared to other observability tools that require understanding and tuning numerous settings. Get OpenObserve up and running on a single node in under 2 minutes. No PhD required.
2. Cost Efficiency
You can reduce your log storage costs by ~140x compared to Elasticsearch. Yes, you read that right - 140x, not a typo. This is achieved through columnar storage format (Parquet), aggressive compression, and S3-native architecture. See the detailed comparison below where we ingested the same amount of data in OpenObserve and Elasticsearch and found OpenObserve storage cost to be ~140x lower. Your CFO will love you.
3. Performance
OpenObserve delivers better performance than Elasticsearch while using 1/4th the hardware resources. Users report faster search performance and significantly faster analytics queries. The columnar storage format (Parquet) with intelligent partitioning and caching reduces the search space by up to 99% for most queries. Built in Rust for memory safety and high performance, OpenObserve handles thousands of concurrent users querying a single cluster simultaneously.
4. Single Binary Platform
Consolidate metrics, logs, and traces on one single, efficient platform. OpenObserve comes with its own UI, eliminating the need for multiple installations. One binary to rule them all.
OpenObserve achieves 140x lower storage costs and high performance through its modern architecture:
Parquet columnar storage: Efficient compression and query performance
S3-native design: Leverages inexpensive object storage with intelligent caching
Built in Rust: Memory-safe, high-performance, single binary deployment
Partitioning, indexing and smart caching: Reduces search space by up to 99% for most queries
Native multi-tenancy: Organizations and streams as first-class concepts with complete data isolation
Stateless architecture: Enables rapid scaling and low RPO/RTO for disaster recovery
This architecture delivers 140x cost savings while providing better performance than Elasticsearch.
Scale & Deployment
Thousands of concurrent users can query a single cluster simultaneously
Single binary scales to terabytes - unique in the observability space
High Availability mode scales to petabytes for the most demanding workloads
Multi-region deployments with cluster federation via Super Cluster architecture (Enterprise feature)
Federated search across regions and clusters (Enterprise feature)
Capacity planning tools to size deployments for your workload
High Availability & Disaster Recovery
Deploy in High Availability mode with clustering for mission-critical workloads requiring maximum uptime and performance.
Low RPO/RTO: OpenObserve's stateless architecture with S3-backed storage enables very low Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Stateless nodes can be rapidly restarted, and data durability is guaranteed by S3's 99.999999999% (11 nines) durability. That's a lot of nines.
Logs, Metrics, Traces: Full support for all three pillars of observability.
OpenTelemetry Support: Native OTLP ingestion for logs, metrics, and traces.
Real User Monitoring (RUM): Performance tracking, error logging, and session replay.
Dashboards, Reports, Alerts: 19+ built-in chart types plus a custom chart capability that enables creating 200+ chart variations including 3D visualizations. Scheduled reports and flexible alerting.
Pipelines: Enrich, redact, reduce, or normalize data on ingest. Stream processing for logs-to-metrics and more.
Built-in Web UI: No separate frontend to install or manage.
SQL and PromQL Support: Query logs and traces with SQL, metrics with SQL or PromQL.
Single Binary or High Availability Mode: Start with one binary, scale to full High Availability when you need it.
Flexible Storage: Local disk, S3, MinIO, GCS, or Azure Blob Storage.
High Availability and Clustering: Production-grade High Availability deployment.
Dynamic Schema: No predefined schema required - just start sending data.
Built-in Authentication: Secure by default.
Simple Upgrades: No complex migration scripts required.
Multilingual UI: Available in 11 languages including English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, and more.
For a full list of features, check the documentation.
OpenObserve includes a powerful web UI for logs, traces, dashboards, alerts, and more.
Logs Search
Distributed Tracing
Trace details page with full request flow visualization:
Dashboards
Frontend Monitoring
Real user monitoring with session replay:
See more screenshots
Home
Golden Metrics from Traces
More Dashboard Examples
Performance Analytics
Error Tracking
Alerts
Streams
Ingestion
Pipeline
Functions
🔐 Security & Compliance
Security Features
Highly secure architecture with secure container images
Sensitive Data Redaction (SDR): Automatically redact sensitive data during ingestion and query time (Enterprise feature)
Data encryption: At rest and in transit
Single Sign-On (SSO): OIDC, OAuth, SAML, LDAP/AD integration (Enterprise feature)
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Granular permissions management (Enterprise feature) - Learn more →
Compliance Certifications
✅ SOC 2 Type II certified
✅ ISO 27001 certified
✅ GDPR compliant
✅ HIPAA ready (BAA available with Enterprise contracts)
OpenObserve meets the stringent security and compliance requirements of regulated industries including finance, healthcare, and government.
⚖️ License
Open Source Edition: Licensed under AGPL-3.0. We chose AGPL to ensure that improvements to OpenObserve remain open source and benefit the entire community. This license protects the commons while still allowing free commercial use.
Enterprise Edition: Licensed under a commercial Enterprise License Agreement, not AGPL. This provides additional flexibility for enterprise deployments and eliminates any concerns about AGPL requirements.
OpenObserve is built as a true open source project, and we're committed to the community. The open source version is feature-complete and production-ready - it includes logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, alerts, pipelines, and everything you need to run observability at scale. It will always remain actively maintained and free to use without restrictions.
Enterprise Edition
For organizations requiring enterprise-grade features and support, we offer an Enterprise edition with:
Enterprise Features:
Single Sign-On (SSO): OIDC, OAuth, SAML 2.0, LDAP/AD, and integration with major identity providers (Okta, Azure Entra, Google, GitHub, GitLab, Keycloak)
Advanced RBAC: Granular role-based access control with custom roles and permissions - Learn more →
Audit trails: Comprehensive immutable audit logs with configurable retention
Federated search: Query across multiple clusters and regions with Super Cluster
Sensitive Data Redaction (SDR): Automatically redact PII and sensitive data during ingestion and queries
Advanced encryption: AES-256 SIV cipher keys with Google Tink KeySet and Akeyless integration
Query management: Control query resource usage and priorities
Workload management (QoS): Quality of Service controls for multi-tenant environments
Enterprise Support & SLAs:
Dedicated support with contractual SLA guarantees
Priority response times for critical issues
Technical account management
Architecture review and deployment assistance
Migration support from existing tools
Training and onboarding programs
Pricing:
Free tier: Up to 200 GB/day of ingestion (roughly 6 TB/month), including full commercial use
Registration required at 100 GB/day
Volume discounts and multi-year contracts available
For enterprise inquiries and custom deployments, contact our sales team.
🤝 Contributing
We welcome contributions from the community! Whether you're fixing bugs, adding features, improving documentation, or sharing feedback, your help makes OpenObserve better for everyone.
The best way to get help, share ideas, and connect with other OpenObserve users is through our community channels. We're a friendly group of developers, operators, and observability enthusiasts.
📖 Documentation - Guides, tutorials, and API references
❓ FAQ
How does OpenObserve achieve 140x lower storage costs?
Through a combination of Parquet columnar storage format (efficient compression), S3-native architecture (leveraging inexpensive object storage). See the detailed comparison chart in the "Why OpenObserve?" section above.
What are the limitations?
All data in OpenObserve is immutable - once ingested, it cannot be modified or deleted (only entire retention periods can be dropped). This is by design and is actually a feature for logs and compliance requirements, ensuring data integrity and audit trails.
Is this production-ready?
Yes. OpenObserve is running in production with thousands of deployments worldwide, including environments processing in excess of 2 PB/day. See our customer stories for real-world examples.
How does query performance compare to Elasticsearch?
OpenObserve delivers better performance than Elasticsearch for most workloads. Users report faster search performance and significantly faster analytics queries, all while using 1/4th the hardware resources. The columnar storage format (Parquet) is particularly effective for complex aggregations and analytics workloads.
Is there a steep learning curve?
No. OpenObserve is designed to be intuitive from day one:
Familiar query languages: Use SQL for logs and traces, PromQL for metrics - no proprietary query language to learn
Easy-to-use GUI: Intuitive interface with drag-and-drop dashboard builder
Helpful community: Active Slack community and comprehensive documentation to help you get started quickly
No complex tuning: Unlike Elasticsearch, you don't need to understand shards, replicas, heap sizes, or other complex configurations. Just install and go.
Most users are productive within hours, not weeks. Some even claim minutes, but we'll let you be the judge.
