OpenObserve Has a Free API — Logs, Metrics, and Traces in One Platform

#openobserve #observability #logging #devops

OpenObserve is an open-source observability platform that handles logs, metrics, and traces. It uses 140x less storage than Elasticsearch and is much simpler to operate.

What Is OpenObserve?

OpenObserve (formerly ZincObserve) is a cloud-native observability platform. It replaces the ELK stack with a single binary.

Key advantages:

140x less storage than Elasticsearch
Single binary, no JVM
Embedded GUI (no Kibana needed)
S3/MinIO storage backend
SQL-based query language

Quick Start

# Single binary
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openobserve/openobserve/main/download.sh | sh

# Or Docker
docker run -p 5080:5080 -e ZO_ROOT_USER_EMAIL=admin@example.com -e ZO_ROOT_USER_PASSWORD=admin public.ecr.aws/zinclabs/openobserve:latest

UI: http://localhost:5080

REST API

# Ingest logs
curl -X POST http://localhost:5080/api/default/myapp/_json \
  -u admin@example.com:admin \
  -d '[{"level":"info","message":"App started","timestamp":"2026-03-28T10:00:00Z"},{"level":"error","message":"DB connection failed","timestamp":"2026-03-28T10:01:00Z"}]'

# Search logs
curl -X POST http://localhost:5080/api/default/_search \
  -u admin@example.com:admin \
  -d '{"query":{"sql":"SELECT * FROM myapp WHERE level=\"error\" ORDER BY _timestamp DESC LIMIT 10"},"from":0,"size":10}'

Use Cases

Log aggregation — centralized logging
Application monitoring — metrics and traces
Security analytics — SIEM alternative
Cost reduction — replace expensive ELK/Datadog
Compliance — long-term log retention on S3

OpenObserve vs Alternatives

Feature	OpenObserve	Elasticsearch	Datadog
Storage	140x less	Baseline	Cloud
Setup	1 min	30 min	Cloud
Price	Free/OSS	Free/OSS	Expensive
JVM needed	No	Yes	N/A
GUI included	Yes	Need Kibana	Yes

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