Observability guide
Clear, practical explanations of the concepts behind modern observability, from OpenTelemetry to SLOs and AI agents.
What is observability?
Observability is the ability to understand the internal state of a software system by analyzing the telemetry it emits, such as metrics, logs, traces and profiles. An …
Read the guideObservability vs monitoring: what is the difference?
Observability vs monitoring describes two complementary approaches: monitoring collects predefined metrics and alerts when known conditions are violated, telling you …
Read the guideWhat is OpenTelemetry?
OpenTelemetry (OTel) is an open-source, vendor-neutral observability framework of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). It provides APIs, SDKs, …
Read the guideWhat is APM (application performance monitoring)?
APM (application performance monitoring) is the practice and tooling for measuring how software applications perform for their users. APM tools instrument code to track …
Read the guideWhat is AIOps?
AIOps (artificial intelligence for IT operations) is the use of machine learning, statistical analysis and, increasingly, generative and agentic AI to analyze …
Read the guideWhat is an SLO (service level objective)?
An SLO (service level objective) is a target value for how reliable a service should be, measured by a service level indicator (SLI) over a time window, for example …
Read the guideWhat is MTTR (mean time to recovery)?
MTTR (mean time to recovery, repair, respond or resolve) is the average time it takes to restore a system after a failure, calculated as total recovery time divided by …
Read the guideThe four golden signals: latency, traffic, errors and saturation
The four golden signals are latency, traffic, errors and saturation: the four metrics Google's SRE book recommends monitoring for every user-facing system. They describe …
Read the guideWhat is root cause analysis (RCA)?
Root cause analysis (RCA) is a structured method for finding the underlying causes of an incident, rather than only its symptoms, so that effective corrective actions …
Read the guideWhat is LLM observability?
LLM observability is the practice of collecting and analysing traces, metrics, logs and evaluations from applications built on large language models and AI agents. It …
Read the guideCompare Obseria
Obseria vs Datadog
Looking for a Datadog alternative? Here is a fact-based comparison of pricing models, data architecture, OpenTelemetry support, AI and data residency, including when Datadog is the better fit.
Obseria vs Dynatrace
Comparing a Dynatrace alternative? Both platforms use a lakehouse, a pipe query language and causal AI. The differences lie in commercial model, instrumentation approach and hosting options.
Obseria vs New Relic
Evaluating a New Relic alternative? Both platforms are usage-based and accept OpenTelemetry natively. The key differences are how users and compute are billed, storage design and hosting options.
Obseria vs Splunk
Considering a Splunk alternative for observability? This comparison covers Splunk Observability Cloud's host-based editions, its log integration with the Splunk platform, OpenTelemetry and data residency.
Obseria vs Grafana
Looking for a Grafana alternative? Grafana Labs offers the open source LGTM stack and Grafana Cloud. Obseria is one integrated platform. Here is how pricing, data model, OpenTelemetry and AI compare.
Obseria vs Elastic Observability
Looking for an Elastic alternative? We compare Elastic Observability and Obseria on pricing, storage, OpenTelemetry, AI, operations and data residency, including where Elastic remains the stronger choice.
Obseria vs Honeycomb
Looking for a Honeycomb alternative? This comparison covers pricing, data model, OpenTelemetry, AI, retention and data residency, and explains where Honeycomb's debugging workflow is hard to beat.
Obseria vs Sentry
Looking for a Sentry alternative? Sentry and Obseria solve overlapping but different problems. This comparison explains pricing, scope, OpenTelemetry, AI and data residency, and when Sentry is simply the better fit.
Obseria vs Dash0
Looking for a Dash0 alternative? Both platforms are OpenTelemetry-native and use the same per-signal pricing model with comparable list prices, so the real differences lie in hosting, certifications, AI and platform scope.
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