# open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go

OpenTelemetry Go API and SDK

Repository: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/opentelemetry-go
Homepage: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/go
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: tracing, metrics, opentelemetry, logging
Last push: 2026-08-26T19:41:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2666, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 8, "gap_med": 33, "n_releases_24m": 20}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6526, forks 1458 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:44.923786+00:00)

## What it is
The official Go implementation of the OpenTelemetry API and SDK for instrumenting applications to generate traces, metrics, and logs. It exports telemetry data to any vendor-neutral observability backend.

## Use cases
- instrument a Go service with distributed tracing
- collect metrics from a Go application
- export OpenTelemetry traces to Jaeger or Datadog
- add structured logging with trace correlation in Go
- monitor latency and errors in Go microservices
- set up observability for a Go API

## When to choose
- you need vendor-neutral telemetry in a Go application
- you want stable tracing and metrics APIs with an active SDK
- you are standardizing on OpenTelemetry across services

## When to avoid
- you need a turnkey no-code observability agent rather than a code library
- your stack is not Go
- you need fully stable log signal support (still beta)

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: tracing, monitoring, logging, sdk
- domain: monitoring, developer-tools, backend, microservices
- platform: go, cross-platform
- tags: opentelemetry, observability, metrics, telemetry, apm, distributed-tracing, instrumentation

## Member repositories
- open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go (main) score 95

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:44.923786+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 2026-08-29T17:44:09.750803+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:44.923786+00:00, sha 1b5d26e79a53)
  - homepage: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.601850+00:00, sha aaf36065ad03)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.604116+00:00, sha 06566227bba9)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/bn/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.605814+00:00, sha ab2b48c433de)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/es/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.607537+00:00, sha c68c63590e9a)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/fr/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.609272+00:00, sha 66bbeea7b0cb)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/ja/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.611897+00:00, sha 9e4036190ecc)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/ko/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.614330+00:00, sha 0877a7272098)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/pl/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.616411+00:00, sha f40ffae720e4)
  - site_page: https://opentelemetry.io/pt/docs/languages/go (fetched 2026-08-29T08:40:43.618061+00:00, sha ed4cb473f2b1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.