Why many observability products struggle with tracing data (hint: it’s the architecture)

Observe offers a unique architecture for tracing that allows for efficient handling of complex asynchronous workloads and long-term data retention, overcoming limitations commonly found in other tracing tools. Their system, which uses a data-agnostic streaming ingest pipeline with NGINX, Kafka, and Snowflake, eliminates the need for trace assembly at ingestion, enabling seamless querying and avoiding constraints on trace structure or duration. This approach contrasts with the architectures of other vendors like New Relic, Datadog, and Lightstep, which impose limitations on trace retention and structure due to reliance on tightly coupled compute and storage systems. Observe's pricing model, which charges based on query rather than ingest, offers significant cost savings and ensures all data remains accessible for compliance and historical analysis, unlike traditional systems that require costly upgrades for extended data retention. Their architecture, which separates storage from compute, allows for near-instant query latencies while maintaining economical data management, providing an advantage over legacy vendors by ensuring all necessary data is readily available for troubleshooting and analysis without the need for sampling or aggressive trade-offs.

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