Traceway Ships MIT-Licensed OTel-Native Observability Stack

Traceway is an MIT-licensed, OpenTelemetry-native observability platform that unifies logs, traces, metrics, session replay, exceptions, and AI tracing in a single Docker container. The entire stack starts with docker compose up -d and completes setup in about 90 seconds.

No OpenTelemetry Collector. No per-language vendor SDKs. No glue code stitching Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo together. You point any OTLP exporter at Traceway, and it ingests traces, metrics, and logs over HTTP using Protobuf or JSON.

What's in the Box

Traceway ships these capabilities out of the box:

  • Logs — Structured, trace-linked, sub-second search. Native OTLP/HTTP ingest from any OTel SDK.
  • Traces — End-to-end span waterfalls across every service. Click a log, jump to its span.
  • Metrics — Host, runtime, and custom metrics with any dimension and custom widget groups.
  • Exceptions — SHA-256 normalized stack traces grouped into ranked issues. Source-mapped for webpack, esbuild, and Vite.
  • Session Replay — Watch what the user did right before the error. Available for web (any JS framework) and Flutter.
  • AI Observability — LLM cost, tokens, latency, and full conversations across providers (OpenRouter and any OTel-compatible AI gateway).

Plus configurable alerts (Slack, GitHub, email, webhook), Apdex + Impact-Score endpoint ranking, multi-tenant orgs with role-based access, and per-endpoint slow-threshold overrides.

License and Pricing

The source is entirely MIT licensed. No BSL, no open-core, no missing features behind a paywall. Every feature is in the box. Self-host for free, or use Traceway Cloud for managed hosting.

Quick Start

Self-host with Docker:

git clone https://github.com/tracewayapp/traceway
cd traceway && docker compose up -d
# dashboard at http://localhost

Point any OTel SDK at http://localhost/api/otel/v1/traces (or /metrics, /logs) and traces start flowing.

Embedded mode inside a Go app — no Docker, no external databases, SQLite under the hood:

go get github.com/tracewayapp/traceway/backend

import tracewaybackend "github.com/tracewayapp/traceway/backend"

func main() { go tracewaybackend.Run( tracewaybackend.WithPort(8082), tracewaybackend.WithDefaultUser("admin@localhost.com", "admin"), tracewaybackend.WithDefaultProject("My App", "go", "dev-token"), ) // ... start your app, point its OTel exporter to http://localhost:8082/api/otel/v1/traces }


Open `http://localhost:8082`, log in, and hit your app to see traces.

## Tech Stack

- **Backend**: Go 1.25, Gin
- **Frontend**: SvelteKit 2, Svelte 5, Tailwind CSS v4
- **Telemetry DB**: ClickHouse (standalone) or SQLite (embedded)
- **Relational DB**: PostgreSQL (standalone) or SQLite (embedded)
- **Ingest**: OTLP/HTTP (Protobuf + JSON) for traces, metrics, logs

## Supported Integrations

Traceway integrates with existing OTel-instrumented apps. It ships traces, metrics, and logs over OTLP/HTTP — no proprietary SDK required. Supported backend frameworks include Gin, Chi, Fiber, FastHTTP, net/http, Go Generic, Node.js (NestJS, Hono), Symfony, and Cloudflare. Frontend integrations include Next.js, React, Vue, Svelte, jQuery, and pure JavaScript — all include session replay. Mobile: Flutter. AI: any OTel-compatible AI gateway.

## Why Traceway vs. Alternatives

The README compares Traceway to enterprise solutions like Datadog/New Relic and DIY OSS stacks (Prometheus + Loki + Tempo + ...). Enterprise tools charge per-event, per-host, per-seat and require vendor SDKs per language. DIY OSS stacks are free but require gluing 6 tools together and running an OTel Collector. Traceway claims to be free (self-host) with no glue code and no OTel Collector needed — just native OTLP/HTTP ingest.

## Project Structure

- `backend/` — Go/Gin API server: OTLP ingest, REST API, notifications, migrations
- `frontend/` — SvelteKit 2 dashboard SPA
- `docs/` — Documentation site (Nextra)
- `examples/` — Working examples for embedded mode and OTel-instrumented apps (Express, NestJS, Next.js, Hono)
- `website/` — Landing page

Build tags: `(none)` for SQLite embedded mode, `pgch` for ClickHouse + PostgreSQL standalone server, `localdist` for embedding frontend from `static/dist/`.

## Community and Contribution

Traceway is built in the open with an active Discord community. Contributions are welcome via pull requests. The project is fresh on Hacker News with 9 points and 2 comments at time of writing.

## What This Means for Developers

If you're tired of stitching together Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, and Grafana — or paying Datadog's per-host bills — Traceway offers a single binary that ingests native OTel and gives you logs, traces, metrics, and session replay under MIT license. The 90-second setup claim is credible given the Docker Compose approach. The embedded Go mode is a nice touch for small teams that want zero-infrastructure observability.

## Next Steps

Clone the repo and run `docker compose up -d`. Point your existing OTel SDK at it. If you're in Go, try the embedded mode with SQLite. Join the Discord to shape the roadmap.