OpenObserve Cloud-Native Observability Platform for Logs Metrics and Traces
OpenObserve is an open-source, cloud-native observability platform for logs, metrics, traces, and Real User Monitoring (RUM). Designed as a cost-effective alternative to Datadog, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, it achieves 140x lower storage costs through Parquet columnar storage and S3-native architecture.
OpenObserve is an open-source, cloud-native observability platform for logs, metrics, traces, and Real User Monitoring (RUM). Designed as a cost-effective alternative to Datadog, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, it achieves 140x lower storage costs through Parquet columnar storage and S3-native architecture.
npx skills add agentskillexchange/skills --skill openobserve-observability-platform-logs-metrics-traces
Overview
OpenObserve (O2) is a unified observability platform built in Rust that handles logs, metrics, traces, analytics, and Real User Monitoring (RUM) in a single deployment. Developed by the OpenObserve team, it provides a modern alternative to the Elasticsearch + Kibana + Logstash (ELK) stack, Datadog, and Splunk at a fraction of the cost.
Architecture
OpenObserve uses Parquet columnar storage with an S3-native design, which is the key to its 140x lower storage costs compared to Elasticsearch. The platform is built in Rust for memory safety and high performance, and can be deployed as a single binary for simplicity or in High Availability mode with clustering for production workloads.
Query Language
Unlike proprietary observability platforms that require learning custom query languages, OpenObserve uses standard SQL for querying logs and traces, and supports both SQL and PromQL for metrics. This dramatically lowers the learning curve for teams already familiar with SQL.
OpenTelemetry Native
OpenObserve is built on the OpenTelemetry standard, supporting OTLP for ingesting traces, metrics, and logs. This means you can use the standard OpenTelemetry SDK and Grafana Alloy (or any OTEL collector) to send data to OpenObserve without vendor lock-in.
Key Features
- Unified platform for logs, metrics, traces, RUM, dashboards, and alerts
- Single binary deployment — running in under 2 minutes
- Built-in dashboard builder with visualization widgets
- Alerting system with support for Slack, email, and webhook notifications
- Multi-tenant architecture with organization-level data isolation
- Stream-based data organization with configurable retention
Agent Integration Points
AI agents and coding assistants can integrate with OpenObserve through its REST API for querying logs, creating dashboards programmatically, and setting up alerts. The platform’s SQL query interface makes it straightforward for agents to analyze application logs, search for error patterns, and generate incident reports. Agents can also use the OpenObserve API to set up monitoring for deployed applications automatically.
Installation
# Docker (quickest start)
docker run -d --name openobserve -p 5080:5080 \
-e ZO_ROOT_USER_EMAIL=admin@example.com \
-e ZO_ROOT_USER_PASSWORD=ComplexPass#123 \
public.ecr.aws/zinclabs/openobserve:latest
# Homebrew (macOS)
brew tap openobserve/tap
brew install openobserve
# Kubernetes via Helm
helm repo add openobserve https://charts.openobserve.ai
helm install o2 openobserve/openobserve