Datadog and OpenTelemetry Compatibility

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Overview

Datadog offers multiple setup options to accommodate various use cases, from full OpenTelemetry (OTel) implementations to hybrid setups using both OpenTelemetry and Datadog components. This page covers the compatibility between different setups and supported Datadog products and features, helping you choose the best configuration for your needs.

Setups

Datadog supports several configurations for using OpenTelemetry. The primary difference between these setups is the choice of SDK (OpenTelemetry or Datadog) and the collector used to process and forward telemetry data.

Setup Type	API	SDK	Collector/Agent
Datadog SDK + DDOT (Recommended)	Datadog API or OTel API	Datadog SDK	Datadog Distribution of OTel Collector (DDOT)
OTel SDK + DDOT	OTel API	OTel SDK	Datadog Distribution of OTel Collector (DDOT)
OTel SDK + OSS Collector	OTel API	OTel SDK	OTel Collector (OSS)
Direct OTLP Ingest	OTel API	OTel SDK	N/A (Direct to Datadog endpoint)

Feature compatibility

The following table shows feature compatibility across different setups:

Feature	Datadog SDK + DDOT (Recommended)	OTel SDK + DDOT
Cloud SIEM
Correlated Traces, Metrics, Logs
Distributed Tracing
Agent Observability
Runtime Metrics
Span Links
Trace Metrics	(Calculated from spans that reach Datadog; reflects any OTel-side sampling you configure.)
Database Monitoring (DBM)
Infrastructure Host List
Cloud Network Monitoring (CNM)
Live Container Monitoring/Kubernetes Explorer	Kubernetes Explorer support for the OSS Collector is in Preview. Contact your account representative to request access.
Live Processes
Universal Service Monitoring (USM)
App and API Protection (AAP)
Continuous Profiler
Data Observability: Jobs Monitoring (DJM)
Data Streams Monitoring (DSM)	OTel does not offer DSM functionality	OTel does not offer DSM functionality
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
Source code integration

API support

Datadog SDKs provide support for the OpenTelemetry Traces, Metrics, and Logs APIs across various languages. Find your language in the table below for setup guides and support details.

Language	Traces API	Metrics API	Logs API
.NET
Python
Node.js
Java
Go
Ruby	Alpha
PHP	Not Yet Supported

More details

Agent Observability

OpenTelemetry traces that have generative AI attributes are automatically converted into Agent Observability traces. To disable this conversion, see Disabling Agent Observability conversion.

Runtime metrics

Datadog SDK setups: Emit Runtime Metrics using DogStatsD (UDP port 8125). Ensure DogStatsD is enabled in your Datadog Agent.
OpenTelemetry SDK setups: Follow the OpenTelemetry Runtime Metrics specification and are typically sent using OTLP (port 4317/4318).

Real User Monitoring (RUM)

To enable full RUM functionality, you need to inject supported headers to correlate RUM and traces.

Cloud Network Monitoring (CNM)

Span-level or endpoint-level monitoring is not supported.

For more information, see Cloud Network Monitoring Setup.

Source Code Integration

For unsupported languages in OpenTelemetry setups, configure telemetry tagging to link data to a specific commit.

Support levels

Datadog provides different levels of support for OpenTelemetry components and configurations:

Datadog Supported Components: Datadog-owned components such as the Datadog Connector, Datadog Exporter, and Infra Attribute Processor. These components are maintained by Datadog, receive regular updates, and are prioritized for bug fixes and feature enhancements.
Community Supported Components: OpenTelemetry components included with the DDOT Collector by default. Datadog helps ensure these components are secure, stable, and compatible.
Custom Components: OpenTelemetry components or configurations not included by default, such as custom Collector components or instrumentation of unsupported runtimes. Datadog provides guidance and documentation as a starting point but does not directly support these components’ functionality. For issues with custom components, engage with the OpenTelemetry community or the component maintainers.

Platform and environment support

While the OpenTelemetry Collector can be deployed in many environments, certain platforms have specific limitations or support requirements.

AWS EKS Fargate: This environment is not currently supported and will result in incorrect infrastructure host billing when used with the OpenTelemetry Collector. Official support is planned for a future release. See the Collector setup guide for the most up-to-date information.

Best practices

When using Datadog and OpenTelemetry together, Datadog recommends the following best practices to ensure optimal performance and to avoid potential issues:

Avoid mixed instrumentation: In most cases, you should not use both a Datadog SDK and an OpenTelemetry SDK in the same application, as this leads to undefined behavior.
- Exception: Support for some languages, such as Python, requires both the Datadog SDK and the OpenTelemetry SDK to be installed.
- Always follow the specific language-specific instrumentation documentation to ensure you are using the correct and supported setup.
Avoid Agent and separate Collector on same host: Do not run the Datadog Agent and a separate OpenTelemetry Collector on the same host, as this may cause issues. However, you can run Agents and Collectors on different hosts within the same fleet.

URL: https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/compatibility/