---
title: "Documentation"
source: OpenTelemetry Documentation
source_url: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io
licence: CC-BY-4.0
domain: engineering
subdomain: opentelemetry-docs
date_added: 2026-04-25
---

OpenTelemetry, also known as OTel, is a vendor-neutral open source
[Observability](concepts/observability-primer/#what-is-observability) framework
for instrumenting, generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data such as
[traces](concepts/signals/traces/), [metrics](concepts/signals/metrics/), and
[logs](concepts/signals/logs/).

As an industry-standard, OpenTelemetry is
[supported by more than 90 observability vendors](/ecosystem/vendors/),
integrated by many [libraries, services, and apps](/ecosystem/integrations/),
and adopted by [numerous end users](/ecosystem/adopters/).

![OpenTelemetry Reference Architecture](/img/otel-diagram.svg)
