Open Source Is Dominating Observability

Learn more about Grafana Labs

Open source dominance continues in observability, according to the Observability Survey from Grafana Labs.

A remarkable 75% of respondents are now using open source licensing for observability, with 70% reporting that their organizations use both Prometheus and OpenTelemetry in some capacity. Half of all organizations increased their investments in both technologies for the second year in a row.

The 2025 Observability Survey reveals that OpenTelemetry has continued its trajectory toward mainstream status with half of all organizations increasing their investments in the open source project for the second year in a row.

More than two-thirds of organizations (67%) use Prometheus in production in some capacity and while OpenTelemetry has less production usage (41%), it appears to have more momentum for future growth, with more than a third (38%) of respondents investigating it and only 6% reporting they have no plans to use OpenTelemetry at all. The survey also found that vendor neutrality and flexibility remain the most cited requirements for compatible observability solutions, directly aligning with OpenTelemetry's core value proposition.

"Our survey data confirms what we're seeing in the field — organizations aren't choosing between observability technologies, they're embracing multiple approaches to solve real-world problems," said Ted Young, developer programs director at Grafana Labs, cofounder of OpenTelemetry, and member of the OpenTelemetry Governance Committee. "This includes the growing adoption of both OpenTelemetry and Prometheus, two tools that work great together."

Other report findings include:

C-Suite Sees Importance of Observability

Roughly three-quarters of all companies say observability is business-critical at either the CTO, VP, or director level, with CTO being the most common response (33%). Organizations whose C-suite sees observability as business-critical are more likely to adopt more advanced tools and practices such as traces, profiles, SLOs, OpenTelemetry, and unified application and infrastructure observability.

Desire for AI to Tame Complexity Rises

The number one observability concern for respondents is complexity, while alert fatigue is cited as the biggest obstacle to faster incident response, so it's no wonder training-based alerts and faster root cause analysis topped respondents' AI/ML wishlist for observability.

Cost Management Remains Important, But Not Critical

Three-quarters of companies say cost is an important criteria when selecting observability technologies, though less than a third say they're concerned about observability costing too much — meaning organizations are more focused on getting value from their tools and techniques than just selecting the cheapest option.

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Open Source Is Dominating Observability

Learn more about Grafana Labs

Open source dominance continues in observability, according to the Observability Survey from Grafana Labs.

A remarkable 75% of respondents are now using open source licensing for observability, with 70% reporting that their organizations use both Prometheus and OpenTelemetry in some capacity. Half of all organizations increased their investments in both technologies for the second year in a row.

The 2025 Observability Survey reveals that OpenTelemetry has continued its trajectory toward mainstream status with half of all organizations increasing their investments in the open source project for the second year in a row.

More than two-thirds of organizations (67%) use Prometheus in production in some capacity and while OpenTelemetry has less production usage (41%), it appears to have more momentum for future growth, with more than a third (38%) of respondents investigating it and only 6% reporting they have no plans to use OpenTelemetry at all. The survey also found that vendor neutrality and flexibility remain the most cited requirements for compatible observability solutions, directly aligning with OpenTelemetry's core value proposition.

"Our survey data confirms what we're seeing in the field — organizations aren't choosing between observability technologies, they're embracing multiple approaches to solve real-world problems," said Ted Young, developer programs director at Grafana Labs, cofounder of OpenTelemetry, and member of the OpenTelemetry Governance Committee. "This includes the growing adoption of both OpenTelemetry and Prometheus, two tools that work great together."

Other report findings include:

C-Suite Sees Importance of Observability

Roughly three-quarters of all companies say observability is business-critical at either the CTO, VP, or director level, with CTO being the most common response (33%). Organizations whose C-suite sees observability as business-critical are more likely to adopt more advanced tools and practices such as traces, profiles, SLOs, OpenTelemetry, and unified application and infrastructure observability.

Desire for AI to Tame Complexity Rises

The number one observability concern for respondents is complexity, while alert fatigue is cited as the biggest obstacle to faster incident response, so it's no wonder training-based alerts and faster root cause analysis topped respondents' AI/ML wishlist for observability.

Cost Management Remains Important, But Not Critical

Three-quarters of companies say cost is an important criteria when selecting observability technologies, though less than a third say they're concerned about observability costing too much — meaning organizations are more focused on getting value from their tools and techniques than just selecting the cheapest option.

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77% of leaders say their teams need AI skills urgently. 64% say their organization plans to train current employees rather than hire new ones. So far, so reasonable. The part that surprised me is who's been put in charge: 34% of those leaders say IT and engineering own the AI skills mandate. Learning and Development or HR own it at 7% of organizations. That's roughly five-to-one in favor of the people who understand the tools, over the people whose actual job is teaching adults how to learn new ones ...

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89% of Frontend Teams Use AI in Their Workflows, but Few Use It for Observability

We just surveyed 300 frontend and mobile engineers across 16 countries, and the finding that keeps sticking with me isn't the one about AI. It's this: 74% of engineering teams rate themselves in the "middle" of the observability maturity scale. Not reactive, not strategic. Stuck in the middle. They have dashboards, they have tracing, they have alerts. And yet when something goes wrong, they still can't tell you why ...

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The race to deploy AI is largely over. Most enterprises have entered it. The question now is not whether artificial intelligence is running inside the organization. The question is whether anyone is genuinely responsible for what it does. That is not a technical question. It is a leadership one. And most organizations are not yet structured to answer it honestly ...

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AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...