Overview
What is Sematext Tracing?¶
Sematext Tracing is a modern, OpenTelemetry-based distributed tracing solution that helps you monitor and troubleshoot complex microservices architectures and distributed systems. Built on the industry-standard OpenTelemetry protocol, it provides deep insights into your application's performance, latency patterns, and error propagation across services.
Key Features¶
OpenTelemetry Native¶
- Industry Standard: Built on OpenTelemetry (OTel), the vendor-neutral standard for observability
- OTLP Support: Native support for OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) via HTTP and gRPC
- Auto-Instrumentation: Automatic instrumentation for popular frameworks and libraries
- Language Support: SDKs for Java, Python, Node.js, Go, .NET, Ruby, PHP, and more
Trace Analysis¶
- End-to-End Visibility: Track requests across multiple services and infrastructure components
- Service Maps (coming soon): Visualize service dependencies and communication patterns
- Latency Analysis: Identify performance bottlenecks with P50, P95, and P99 percentiles
- Error Tracking: Pinpoint errors and exceptions with detailed stack traces
Powerful Search and Filtering¶
- Traces Explorer: Search and filter traces by service, operation, duration, and custom attributes
- Timeline View: Visualize trace distribution over time
- Advanced Filters: Filter by response status, span errors, database operations, and more
Intelligent Alerting¶
- Threshold-Based Alerts: Set alerts on latency, error rates, and trace volume
- Anomaly Detection: Automatic detection of unusual patterns
- Alert Integrations: Connect with PagerDuty, Slack, email, and other notification channels
How It Works¶
- Instrument Your Application: Add OpenTelemetry SDK to your application (auto or manual instrumentation)
- Configure Sematext Agent: Deploy Sematext Agent with OTLP receiver enabled
- Send Traces: Your application sends traces to the local Sematext Agent
- View and Analyze: Access traces through the Sematext Cloud UI
graph LR
A[Application<br/>with OTel SDK] -->|OTLP| B[Sematext Agent<br/>OTLP Receiver]
B -->|Secure Export| C[Sematext Cloud]
C --> D[Trace Analysis<br/>& Visualization]
Benefits¶
Faster Problem Resolution¶
- Quickly identify the root cause of performance issues
- Understand error propagation across services
- Reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR)
Optimize Performance¶
- Identify slow database queries and API calls
- Find inefficient service communication patterns
- Optimize critical user journeys
Scale with Confidence¶
- Monitor distributed systems at any scale
- Understand system behavior under load
- Plan capacity based on real usage patterns
Developer-Friendly¶
- Easy integration with existing code
- No vendor lock-in with OpenTelemetry
- Rich SDKs for all major languages
Use Cases¶
- Microservices Monitoring: Track requests across complex microservices architectures
- API Performance: Monitor API latency and error rates
- Database Performance: Identify slow queries and connection issues
- User Journey Analysis: Understand end-to-end user experience
- Troubleshooting: Quickly diagnose production issues
Getting Started¶
Ready to start tracing your applications?
- Create a Tracing App in Sematext Cloud
- Choose your SDK and instrument your application
- Install Sematext Agent with OpenTelemetry support
- Explore your traces and gain insights
Related Documentation¶
Need Help?¶
- Documentation: You're already here!
- Support: Contact us via live chat or support@sematext.com
- Status: Check status.sematext.com for service status