Buying OTel Backend

Buyer's guide.

Overview

The whole point of choosing an OpenTelemetry-compatible backend is portability: instrument once with OTel, swap backends later without re-instrumenting code. The trap is that vendors range from genuinely OTLP-native to "we accept OTLP and immediately translate it into our proprietary format," which quietly traps you. Evaluate where on that spectrum each vendor sits.

• OTLP nativeness. Does the backend store OTel semantic conventions and resource attributes as-is, or does it remap to a vendor-specific schema you cannot leave?
• Signal coverage. Logs, metrics, and traces should all ingest via OTLP without losing fidelity. Many vendors handle one or two well and bolt on the third.
• Collector and pipeline support. First-party processors, exporters, and a documented Collector deployment story matter more than dashboards.
• Pricing axis and exit cost. Per-GB, per-host, per-span, and per-attribute models all exist. Confirm you can dual-write OTLP to a second backend during a migration.

The approach

Evaluate against the test that matters: stand up the OTel Collector with both vendors as exporters, send one week of real traffic, and compare what each backend stored.

• OTLP-native scoring. Inspect what each backend persists from a known span. Missing attributes or remapped names are signals you cannot leave cheaply.
• Top-10 query inventory. List the queries on-call actually runs across logs, metrics, and traces. Replay them on each vendor.
• Total cost of ownership model. Add ingest, attribute count, retention tier transitions, and seat licences. Trace pricing per-span and per-GB rarely converge.
• Document the choice and the exit ramp. Capture the rationale and the dual-write path so the migration story is real before you sign.

Why this compounds

An OTLP-native backend keeps paying back: each new service inherits the same instrumentation, the same attributes, and the same exporter config. The platform team stops re-instrumenting every time a vendor changes.

• Portability preserved. Real OTLP nativeness keeps the migration door open at every renewal.
• Faster onboarding. One Collector config and one set of semantic conventions covers every new service.
• Reduced platform tax. Standardising on OTel removes vendor-specific SDKs and the upgrade churn that follows them.
• Decision trail for the next renewal. The evaluation document becomes the renewal scorecard, not a cold start.