Ask Miss O11y: To Metric or to Trace?

The text explores the comparative strengths and weaknesses of metrics, traces, and logs in application monitoring. It critiques metrics for their lack of context and dimensionality, arguing that they are best suited for infrastructure monitoring rather than understanding user behavior or system intricacies. While metrics are cheaper to store due to their aggregated nature, they require predefined queries, limiting their flexibility. In contrast, traces provide richer context and granularity, allowing for more dynamic analysis of system behavior, although they are more expensive to store. Logs are considered less useful than spans within traces, as they lack contextual information. Ultimately, the text advocates for a trace-centric approach to observability, suggesting that metrics be used when context is absent and encouraging the use of spans over traditional logs for more comprehensive insights.