From AI to OTel, 2023 was a transformative year for open source observability. While the advancements we made in open source observability will be a catalyst for our continued work in 2024, there is even more innovation on the horizon. We asked seven Grafanistas to share their predictions for which observability trends are on their “In” list for 2024. Here’s what they had to say.

Schools, universities and other organizations within higher education have been shifting to modernize their learning experiences. With the intake of new students each year, some of these being based remotely, these organizations are seeking to manage large-scale and highly distributed infrastructure.

For developers, understanding the performance of shipped code is crucial. Through the last decade, a tablestake function in software monitoring and observability solutions has been to save and track app metrics. Engineers love tools that get out of your way and just work, and the appeal of today’s best-in-class application performance monitoring (APM) suites lies in a seamless day zero experience with drop-in agent installs, button click integrations, and immediate metrics collection.

Imagine a symphony where every musician plays their part flawlessly, but without a conductor to guide the orchestra, the result is just a discordant mess. Now apply that image to the modern IT landscape, where development and operations teams work with remarkable autonomy, each expertly playing their part. Agile methodologies and DevOps practices have empowered teams to build and manage their services independently, resulting in an environment that accelerates innovation and development.

I’m currently working on a small team within Honeycomb where we’re building an ambitious new feature. We’re excited—heck, the whole company is—and even our customers are knocking on our door. The energy is there. With all this excitement, I’ve been thinking about a risk that—if I'm not careful—could severely hinder my team's ability to ship on time, celebrate success, and continue work after launch: burnout.

Lightrun’s LogOptimizer stands as a groundbreaking automated solution for log optimization and cost reduction in logging. An integral part of the Lightrun IDE plugins, this tool empowers developers to swiftly scan their source code—be it a single file or entire projects—to identify and replace log lines with Lightrun’s dynamic logs, all within seconds.