OpenTelemetry vs. Prometheus Usage: 2025 Observability Survey Analysis | Grafana Labs
Myrle Krantz, Director of Engineering at Grafana Labs, talks about vendor lock-in, OpenTelemetry vs. Prometheus, open source adoption, and other tooling findings from Grafana Labs’ third annual Observability Survey — featuring insights from over 1,200 practitioners across the globe.
⏱️ Chapters / Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro: What the 2025 Observability Survey covers
01:00 – Top concerns: Cost, complexity, vendor lock-in
02:10 – Why “open source” isn’t a goal — it’s a strategy
03:55 – Fragmentation, flexibility, and the tradeoffs of OSS
05:10 – Teams juggling dozens of observability tools
06:05 – When developers deploy Prometheus under the radar
07:10 – What “vendor lock-in” really means (hint: it’s not one-size-fits-all)
08:54 – Prometheus + OpenTelemetry: Not competitors, but collaborators
10:40 – Why OTel adoption is up, but production maturity still lags
11:35 – Open source vs SaaS? Why the answer might be “yes”
Relevant links:
📊 Dive deeper into the data: https://play.grafana.org/d/feg4yc4qw3wn4b/third-annual-observability-survey/
🔗 Full survey results: https://grafana.com/observability-survey/
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