If you’ve ever tried to troubleshoot a production issue, you know the struggle. Metrics live in one tool, logs in another, and traces in yet another dashboard. By the time you connect the dots, users are already frustrated. That’s where dash0 comes in.
Dash0 is an OpenTelemetry-native observability platform designed to bring all your telemetry data—metrics, traces, and logs—into one connected system. It’s fast, transparent, and built for engineers who want clarity without the noise.
What is Dash0?
Dash0 is a unified observability solution that simplifies monitoring for cloud-native and distributed systems. Unlike traditional platforms that rely on proprietary standards, dash0 is built entirely around OpenTelemetry, ensuring open data formats and freedom from vendor lock-in.
With dash0, teams can gain real-time insights, resolve incidents faster, and manage costs more effectively.
Why Choose Dash0 Over Other Tools?
OpenTelemetry at the Core
Some platforms “support” OTel by bending it to fit their models. Dash0 fully embraces it, giving you true portability and flexibility.
Clear, Predictable Pricing
Forget surprise invoices. Dash0 charges based on telemetry volume, so you only pay for what you use.
Built for Engineers
From service maps to dashboards, dash0 is made with developers, SREs, and platform teams in mind—simple to use, powerful under the hood.
Top Features of Dash0
Metrics That Tell a Story
Monitor system performance trends, track SLIs, and retain data long enough to identify regressions.
Distributed Tracing
See the full journey of a request across microservices. Dash0 makes it easy to filter, search, and analyze traces.
Smarter Logs
Instead of overwhelming you, logs in dash0 are tied directly to related metrics and traces, giving them context.
Dashboards & Service Maps
Visualize your system architecture instantly with service maps and customizable dashboards.
Alerts & Synthetic Monitoring
Catch issues before customers do with proactive alerts and simulated user checks.
Config as Code
Define dashboards and alerts in code to stay consistent with your infrastructure.
Who Benefits from Dash0?
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Developers: Debug faster with connected data.
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SREs: Reduce MTTR by linking logs, metrics, and traces.
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Platform Engineers: Monitor Kubernetes pods, workloads, and namespaces effortlessly.
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Growing Companies: Scale observability without breaking the budget.
How Dash0 Works Internally
At the heart of dash0 is ClickHouse, a high-performance database optimized for large-scale telemetry. This architecture allows for blazing-fast queries, even with high-cardinality data like custom tags or attributes.
Dash0 Pricing Model
Unlike competitors that charge per host, user, or dashboard, dash0 keeps things simple. You pay by the number of telemetry events you ingest—logs, traces, or metrics. Built-in dashboards also show where your budget is going, so you can reduce noisy data and save money.
Dash0 vs Competitors
Dash0 vs Datadog
Datadog is powerful but expensive. Dash0 is lean, affordable, and fully OTel-native.
Dash0 vs New Relic
New Relic uses proprietary telemetry, while dash0 keeps everything open.
Dash0 vs Grafana/Prometheus
Prometheus and Grafana require lots of setup. Dash0 provides ready-to-use observability from day one.
Use Cases for Dash0
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Kubernetes Monitoring: Get native insights into workloads and clusters.
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Microservices Debugging: Follow requests across distributed systems.
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Incident Response: Jump from alerts to root cause in seconds.
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Cost Control: Optimize spend by eliminating unnecessary telemetry.
Best Practices with Dash0
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Keep telemetry naming conventions consistent.
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Use trace sampling for high-traffic services.
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Regularly review cost dashboards.
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Combine service maps with proactive alerts for quicker insights.
Example: Dash0 in Real Life
Picture this: your checkout flow slows down. With dash0, you see latency spikes in your metrics. A quick trace search shows a database call causing delays. Logs confirm the slow query. Within minutes, you’ve identified and fixed the issue—all without juggling multiple tools.
The Future with Dash0
As OpenTelemetry adoption grows, dash0 is set to become the go-to observability solution. It’s open, cost-efficient, and built for modern engineering teams.
Conclusion
Dash0 isn’t just another monitoring tool it’s observability done right. With unified metrics, logs, and traces, true OpenTelemetry support, and transparent pricing, dash0 gives teams the clarity they need to deliver reliable systems without unnecessary complexity.
FAQs
Q1: What does dash0 specialize in?
Dash0 specializes in unifying logs, metrics, and traces into a single OpenTelemetry-native platform.
Q2: How is dash0 priced?
Dash0 uses transparent, volume-based pricing, so you only pay for the telemetry you ingest.
Q3: Can dash0 monitor Kubernetes?
Yes, dash0 integrates deeply with Kubernetes for workloads, pods, and namespace insights.
Q4: How does dash0 compare to Datadog?
Dash0 is leaner, more affordable, and fully aligned with OpenTelemetry standards.
Q5: Who should use dash0?
Developers, SREs, and platform engineers who want open, affordable observability.