Grafana: The open and composable observability platform

OpenTelemetry, a vendor-neutral open standard for application instrumentation, offers two primary approaches: eBPF instrumentation and runtime-specific SDKs. eBPF, a Linux kernel feature, provides comprehensive baseline metrics by operating at the network level, offering benefits such as universal applicability across programming languages and legacy systems, and the ability to generate service graph metrics out of the box. SDKs, on the other hand, deliver deep transaction insights and distributed tracing, enriching application logs with trace contexts and offering runtime-specific metrics. A hybrid model that combines eBPF for baseline metrics and SDKs for detailed application-level insights is recommended, as it ensures broad observability coverage with minimal overhead. This approach is supported by tools like Grafana Beyla, which work alongside SDKs to avoid signal duplication, and is integrated with platforms like Grafana Cloud to facilitate easy implementation. Despite some limitations, such as current Linux-only support for eBPF, efforts are underway to enhance cross-platform compatibility and tighter integration between eBPF and SDKs for a more unified observability solution.