Exporter
A component that collects and transforms metrics from a system into a standard format.
Definition
An exporter is a component that collects metrics data from a specific system or format and transforms it into a standardised format that can be consumed by a monitoring backend. Exporters are a key concept in the Prometheus and OpenTelemetry ecosystems.
In depth
Exporters act as adapters between legacy or proprietary systems and modern observability backends. For example, the Prometheus node_exporter exposes Linux host metrics in Prometheus format, while the MySQL exporter translates database statistics into scrapable metrics. In the OpenTelemetry Collector, exporters are pipeline components that ship processed telemetry to one or more backends (OTLP, Prometheus, Jaeger, etc.). obseria.io is compatible with all standard Prometheus exporters and OpenTelemetry exporters, allowing teams to monitor any system without custom instrumentation.
Related terms
See Exporter in action
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