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APIs · head to head

Convoy vs OpenTelemetry

Convoy logo

Convoy

APIs

Open source webhooks gateway you self-host, handling both sending and receiving

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
OpenTelemetry logo

OpenTelemetry

Cloud

Vendor-neutral standard for traces, metrics and logs

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Convoy the default deployment is self-hosted, so you operate Convoy plus Postgres and Redis and carry the on-call burden for the system that delivers your customers' events.; OpenTelemetry genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right
  • They diverge on capability: Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Convoy and OpenTelemetry actually diverge.

Attributes where Convoy and OpenTelemetry differ
AttributeConvoyOpenTelemetry
Pricing modelPer month, flat rate regardless of volumeOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, CloudLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker
CategoryAPIsCloud

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Convoy

  • Inbound and outbound
  • Broker-driven ingestion
  • Payload transformation
  • Portal links
  • Circuit breaking
  • Retry policies
  • OpenTelemetry export
  • Role-based access control

Only in OpenTelemetry

  • Vendor-neutral SDKs
  • Collector
  • Three signals
  • Auto-instrumentation

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Convoy

  • A fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party SaaS for compliance reasonsnot OpenTelemetry
  • A high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licencenot OpenTelemetry
  • A team that also receives webhooks from many providers and wants ingestion, verification and deduplication in the same gatewaynot OpenTelemetry
  • An engineering group that wants webhook delivery driven directly from an existing Kafka or SQS topicnot OpenTelemetry

OpenTelemetry

  • Instrumenting once and keeping the option to change observability vendor laternot Convoy
  • Standardising telemetry across services written in different languagesnot Convoy
  • Routing and filtering telemetry centrally to control observability spendnot Convoy

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Convoy

  • The default deployment is self-hosted, so you operate Convoy plus Postgres and Redis and carry the on-call burden for the system that delivers your customers' events.
  • Frain Technologies is a small startup, and putting customer-facing delivery infrastructure on it means accepting real vendor continuity risk on a component that is hard to swap out quickly.
  • The premium tier at a flat 999 US dollars a month is poor value below substantial volume, while the community edition omits the portal, transformations and RBAC that most production deployments end up wanting.
  • The hosted cloud trial is capped at one project and 100 events a day, which is too small to properly evaluate the service before committing.
  • Documentation and the third-party ecosystem are thinner than the established webhook services, so unusual configurations often mean reading the Go source.

OpenTelemetry

  • Genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right
  • Language SDKs mature at different rates, so a polyglot estate gets uneven support
  • It produces and moves telemetry but does not store or visualise it, so a backend is still required and still billed

Pricing, plan by plan

Convoy

Free
  • CommunityFree
    • Self-hosted open source gateway
    • Inbound and outbound webhooks
    • Automatic retries and message broker support
  • Premium$999/month
    • Flat rate irrespective of message volume
    • Portal links and payload transformation
    • RBAC, circuit breaking and white labelling
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • SAML SSO
    • Dedicated support with SLA
    • On-premises deployment assistance
  • Cloud$undefined/month
    • Hosted by Convoy
    • 14 day trial limited to one project and 100 events a day
    • Usage-based tiers above the trial

OpenTelemetry

Free
  • OpenTelemetryFree
    • Full functionality
    • No usage limits
    • Community support

Which should you pick?

Choose Convoy if

  • You need inbound and outbound.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want broker-driven ingestion.
Convoy review

Choose OpenTelemetry if

  • You need vendor-neutral sdks.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker.
  • You also want collector.
OpenTelemetry review

Questions people ask

Is Convoy or OpenTelemetry better?
Neither clearly leads. Convoy starts at Free and OpenTelemetry at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Convoy or OpenTelemetry?
Convoy starts at Free and OpenTelemetry at Free.
Does Convoy or OpenTelemetry run on more platforms?
Convoy runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud. OpenTelemetry runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker.
Can I use Convoy for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Convoy best used for?
Convoy is most often used for a fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party saas for compliance reasons, a high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licence, a team that also receives webhooks from many providers and wants ingestion, verification and deduplication in the same gateway, an engineering group that wants webhook delivery driven directly from an existing kafka or sqs topic. Of those, a fintech that cannot route customer webhook traffic through a third-party saas for compliance reasons and a high-volume platform for which per-message webhook pricing costs more than the flat premium licence are not what OpenTelemetry is typically brought in for.
What can Convoy do that OpenTelemetry cannot?
Convoy covers Inbound and outbound, Broker-driven ingestion, Payload transformation, Portal links. OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Collector, Three signals, Auto-instrumentation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Convoy: Is Convoy really open source?

Yes, the community edition is open source and self-hostable, covering both inbound and outbound webhooks with retries.

OpenTelemetry: Is OpenTelemetry free?

Yes, open source under the CNCF. What you pay for is the backend you export to.

Convoy: What does premium cost?

A flat 999 US dollars a month, self-hosted, regardless of message volume.

OpenTelemetry: Does OpenTelemetry replace Datadog or Grafana?

No. It replaces their proprietary agents and instrumentation libraries. You still need a backend to store and query the data.

Convoy: Does it receive webhooks as well as send them?

Yes, inbound ingestion with verification and deduplication is a first-class feature, unlike most webhook services.

OpenTelemetry: Why adopt a vendor-neutral standard?

Because instrumentation is the expensive part. Once code emits OTel, changing observability vendor is a collector config change instead of re-instrumenting every service.

Convoy: Do I have to self-host?

No, there is a hosted cloud, but the trial is capped at 100 events a day and self-hosting is the primary model.

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