# open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler

The production-scale datacenter profiler (C/C++, Go, Rust, Python, Java, NodeJS, .NET, PHP, Ruby, Perl, ...)

Repository: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: ebpf, profiler
Last push: 2026-08-26T13:59:20+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 69/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 62
- inputs: {"age_days": 870, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3176, forks 429 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:47.632676+00:00)

## What it is
A whole-system, cross-language continuous profiler for Linux built on eBPF, part of the OpenTelemetry project. It profiles all processes on a host non-intrusively with very low overhead, producing mixed kernel-to-userspace stacktraces across many runtimes and emitting the OpenTelemetry Profiles signal.

## Use cases
- profile all processes on a production Linux server with low overhead
- get continuous CPU profiles without instrumenting or restarting applications
- capture mixed stacktraces across kernel, native code, and managed runtimes like JVM, Python, and Node.js
- profile native C/C++ or Rust binaries without debug symbols or frame pointers
- export profiling data in OpenTelemetry Profiles format
- find CPU hotspots in a datacenter fleet without deploying per-process agents

## When to choose
- you need whole-host continuous profiling on Linux with minimal overhead
- your fleet mixes multiple languages and runtimes and you want unified stacktraces
- you cannot modify, instrument, or restart the processes being profiled
- you want profiles in the OpenTelemetry Profiles signal format

## When to avoid
- you need profiling on non-Linux platforms like macOS or Windows
- your Linux kernel is older than the minimum supported version (roughly 5.10+)
- you need memory or GPU profiling rather than CPU/on-CPU profiling
- you want a GUI-based interactive profiler rather than an agent

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: monitoring, tracing, developer-tools
- domain: monitoring, performance, operating-systems
- platform: go, self-hosted
- tags: ebpf, profiler, continuous-profiling, opentelemetry, whole-system-profiling, cross-language, low-overhead, linux

## Member repositories
- open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler (main) score 69

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:47.632676+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 2026-08-29T18:45:24.985650+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-ebpf-profiler (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:47.632676+00:00, sha b15e014a0c1f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.