openobserve
by openobserve
OpenObserve is an observability platform that collects and searches logs, metrics, traces, user-session recordings and LLM usage data in one web interface. It is meant for monitoring software and servers at a lower storage cost than tools such as Datadog, Splunk or Elasticsearch.
- Stars
- 22.6k +25 a day
- Licence
- AGPL-3.0
- Runs on
- A small server
- Setup
- Moderate
- Language
- TypeScript
- Age
- 1368 days
What you can do with it
- Collect and search logs from your apps and servers using SQL or full-text search
- Build dashboards and set alerts on logs, metrics and traces
- Watch real user sessions and track errors and costs of AI or LLM features
Could replace
- Datadog
- Splunk
Datadog Infrastructure Pro (per host) starts at $15.00 a month (billed annually, The page shows US dollar prices ("$") with no pound pricing for UK buyers. It does not mention VAT, so I can't confirm whether tax is included. The on-demand (monthly) rate is $18 per host.; source, checked 27 Oct 2026)
Our suggestion based on what it does, not a feature-by-feature comparison.
Make money with it
A freelance developer or DevOps consultant could offer set-up and managed monitoring on OpenObserve to small companies that find Datadog too expensive.
An idea, not financial advice. Check the licence before charging for anything built on it.
Ways a business could use it
- Replace a paid monitoring subscription by self-hosting log and metric storage for your own web app or shop
- Spot errors and slow pages quickly with alerts and session replay, so fewer customers are lost to faults
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use. Anything you distribute that includes it must be open-sourced under the same licence. Running it as an online service also counts, so a hosted version must offer its source.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
Run it as a single Docker container (or single binary) and open the web interface on port 5080, though you must then send data to it from your apps.
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Things to check
- AGPL-3.0 licence, which has obligations if you offer a modified version as a service
- Some features are in a paid Enterprise Edition
- Needs a working knowledge of OpenTelemetry to send data in
- The 140x cost saving is the vendor's own claim
Checked 01 Nov 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
