SigNoz

What is the project about?

SigNoz is an open-source observability platform that provides a unified interface for logs, metrics, and traces. It's designed to help developers monitor their applications, identify performance issues, and troubleshoot problems.

What problem does it solve?

SigNoz solves the problem of fragmented observability data. Instead of using separate tools for logs, metrics, and traces, SigNoz provides a single platform where all this data is correlated. This simplifies troubleshooting and reduces the time it takes to identify the root cause of issues. It also aims to be a cost-effective alternative to commercial solutions like Datadog and New Relic.

What are the features of the project?

• Application Performance Monitoring (APM): Provides out-of-the-box charts for key application metrics (latency, error rate, Apdex, operations per second), database and external call monitoring.
• Logs Management: Centralized log management with fast searching and filtering capabilities, powered by ClickHouse. Allows creating charts and dashboards from log data.
• Distributed Tracing: Tracks user requests across multiple services, visualizing them with Flamegraphs and Gantt charts to pinpoint performance bottlenecks.
• Metrics and Dashboards: Ingests metrics and allows users to create custom dashboards with various visualization types (time-series, pie charts, bar charts, etc.). Includes a metrics query builder.
• Alerts: Sets up alerts based on logs, metrics, or traces, with threshold-based notifications and anomaly detection.
• Exceptions Monitoring: Automatically monitors exceptions in multiple languages (Python, Java, Ruby, Javascript, and others with minimal code) and provides detailed stack traces.
• OpenTelemetry Native: Built on the OpenTelemetry standard, avoiding vendor lock-in.

What are the technologies used in the project?

• OpenTelemetry: For instrumentation and data collection.
• ClickHouse: As the primary datastore for logs (and likely other telemetry data), chosen for its speed and efficiency.
• Docker/Kubernetes (Helm): For deployment.
• Supports instrumentation of applications written in: Java, Python, Node.js/Javascript, Go, PHP, .NET, Ruby, Elixir, Rust, and Swift.

What are the benefits of the project?

• Unified Observability: Combines logs, metrics, and traces in one place.
• Open Source: Reduces cost and avoids vendor lock-in.
• Cost-Effective: Designed to be a more affordable alternative to commercial solutions.
• Fast Performance: Uses ClickHouse for efficient data storage and retrieval.
• Easy to Use: Provides a user-friendly interface and query builders.
• OpenTelemetry Integration: Leverages the industry-standard for observability data.
• Correlation: Enables easy correlation between logs, metrics and traces.

What are the use cases of the project?

• Application Performance Monitoring: Monitoring the health and performance of applications.
• Troubleshooting: Identifying and resolving issues in applications and infrastructure.
• Root Cause Analysis: Pinpointing the underlying cause of problems.
• Capacity Planning: Understanding resource usage and planning for future needs.
• Log Management: Centralized logging and analysis.
• Microservices Monitoring: Tracking requests across distributed services.
• Exception Tracking: Monitoring and analyzing application errors.
• Infrastructure Monitoring: Monitoring the health of servers, containers, and other infrastructure components.