Ask Miss O11y: When should you delete instrumentation?

In the context of code instrumentation, Honeycomb offers a distinct approach compared to traditional metrics-based tools by utilizing structured data blobs, or events, which allows developers to append multiple dimensions to events without additional cost. This model reduces the need to delete instrumentation, as doing so is typically driven by cost constraints in metrics-based systems where high cardinality metrics can be prohibitively expensive. Honeycomb charges by the event rather than by the metric, making it economical to retain a rich set of dimensions, which can be beneficial for future debugging and analysis. The platform supports up to 2,000 dimensions per event, with a cap of 10,000 per dataset, providing ample space to capture diverse context while maintaining safeguards against errors. Honeycomb also offers an interactive demo and a free tier for users to explore its capabilities without immediate commitment.