# open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector

OpenTelemetry Collector

Repository: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/opentelemetry-collector
Homepage: https://opentelemetry.io
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: opentelemetry, open-telemetry, telemetry, metrics, monitoring, observability
Last push: 2026-08-26T22:07:31+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 99/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 98, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2673, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 16, "gap_med": 13.0, "n_releases_24m": 55}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7455, forks 2215 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:59.945985+00:00)

## What it is
The OpenTelemetry Collector is a vendor-agnostic telemetry pipeline service that receives, processes, and exports traces, metrics, and logs to any observability backend. It replaces the need to run multiple agents/collectors by supporting open-source telemetry formats like Jaeger and Prometheus through a configurable pipeline of 200+ components.

## Use cases
- collect and forward traces metrics and logs to any observability backend
- replace multiple vendor telemetry agents with a single collector
- process filter and route telemetry data in a pipeline
- deploy a telemetry gateway or sidecar agent for kubernetes clusters
- convert prometheus and jaeger data to otlp
- tail and parse log files and ship them to a backend
- avoid vendor lock-in for observability data

## When to choose
- you need a vendor-neutral way to receive, process, and export telemetry data
- you want one agent to support multiple telemetry formats and backends
- you need to route, filter, or transform traces, metrics, and logs at scale
- you are standardizing on OpenTelemetry across a cloud-native infrastructure

## When to avoid
- you need a full observability backend with storage and visualization - the Collector is not a backend
- you only need application-level instrumentation APIs and SDKs rather than a collection pipeline
- you want a lightweight single-purpose agent with no configuration surface

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: monitoring, tracing, logging, middleware
- domain: monitoring, cloud-computing, microservices
- platform: go, cross-platform, self-hosted, cloud
- tags: opentelemetry, telemetry, otel-collector, vendor-neutral, otlp, observability-agent, traces, metrics-pipeline, devops, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector (main) score 99

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.945985+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:37:39.964654+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.945985+00:00, sha 226f1f312363)
  - homepage: https://opentelemetry.io (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.534970+00:00, sha 51756d27c4f1)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.544019+00:00, sha 06566227bba9)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/what-is-opentelemetry (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.545794+00:00, sha dd58475f7d30)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/demo (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.547553+00:00, sha 03a34a004b8f)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/traces (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.549318+00:00, sha 123b7f8bc630)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/metrics (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.551328+00:00, sha 5fe9fc342c92)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/logs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.553466+00:00, sha 126e1fa6c0a2)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/baggage (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.555380+00:00, sha fc18d0d07d4b)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/instrumentation/zero-code (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:17.557408+00:00, sha c811260b8c51)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.