Grafana Tempo
High-scale distributed tracing backend. Stores traces in cheap object storage (S3, GCS).
| License | AGPL-3.0 |
| Repository | https://github.com/grafana/tempo |
| GitHub stars (approx) | 4300 |
| Language | Go |
| Self-host deployment | docker, kubernetes helm |
| Commercial hosted option | yes (vendor-run) |
| Freshness status | Fresh |
| Freshness checked | 2026-04-22 |
| Categories | traces |
| Replaces SaaS | datadog, honeycomb, new-relic |
Tempo is designed to store traces at massive scale cheaply — traces land in object storage, TraceQL lets you query them. Pairs naturally with Grafana + OpenTelemetry Collector.
Pick it if: you want to store traces cheaply in S3/GCS and you already run the Grafana stack.
Skip it if: you want turnkey APM with service maps out-of-box (see SigNoz).