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Cloud · head to head

OpenTelemetry vs Qovery

OpenTelemetry logo

OpenTelemetry

Cloud

Vendor-neutral standard for traces, metrics and logs

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Qovery logo

Qovery

Cloud

Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only OpenTelemetry has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: OpenTelemetry genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right; Qovery no plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • They diverge on capability: OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Qovery covers Bring your own cloud.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which OpenTelemetry and Qovery actually diverge.

Attributes where OpenTelemetry and Qovery differ
AttributeOpenTelemetryQovery
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, DockerWeb, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).

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 OpenTelemetry

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

Only in Qovery

  • Bring your own cloud
  • Preview environments
  • Cluster lifecycle
  • Terraform provider
  • MCP server
  • Policy as code

What people use each for

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

OpenTelemetry

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

Qovery

  • A regulated business that must keep application data inside its own AWS account but has nobody to build a deployment platformnot OpenTelemetry
  • Giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining Terraform and Helm by handnot OpenTelemetry
  • Standardising deployment across AWS and GCP when acquisitions have left the organisation on two cloudsnot OpenTelemetry
  • Replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reachnot OpenTelemetry

Where each one falls short

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

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

Qovery

  • No plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • The GPL-3.0 engine and console do not constitute a self-hostable product, because the control plane and API are closed and the self-hosted option is gated behind Enterprise, so the open licence gives you no exit if the company changes direction.
  • Qovery provisions managed Kubernetes into your account, which means the cloud bill sits on top of the licence and Qovery initiates control plane and ingress controller upgrades on infrastructure your team is accountable for.
  • The company repositioned to agentic infrastructure in June 2026 and now ships a deployment platform, a browser development portal and autonomous coding agents concurrently, so a buyer of the deployment product is not at the centre of the roadmap.
  • Team and Business are capped at two and three connected clusters with fixed 4 vCPU CI runners and no single sign-on on Team, which pushes teams of moderate size onto quoted Enterprise pricing earlier than the plan names imply.

Pricing, plan by plan

OpenTelemetry

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

Qovery

On request
  • Team$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 10 users, up to 100 environments, 2 connected clusters
    • 5,000 deployment minutes and 7 day audit logs
  • Business$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 20 users, up to 250 environments, 3 connected clusters
    • 10,000 deployment minutes and 30 day audit logs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom users, environments and clusters
    • Self-hosted or air-gapped control plane
    • On-premises and bring-your-own-Kubernetes

Which should you pick?

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

Choose Qovery if

  • You need bring your own cloud.
  • You work on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
  • You also want preview environments.
Qovery review

Questions people ask

Is OpenTelemetry or Qovery better?
Neither clearly leads. OpenTelemetry starts at Free and Qovery at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, OpenTelemetry or Qovery?
OpenTelemetry has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for OpenTelemetry and On request for Qovery.
Does OpenTelemetry or Qovery run on more platforms?
OpenTelemetry runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker. Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
Can I use OpenTelemetry for free?
Yes. OpenTelemetry has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qovery starts at On request.
What is OpenTelemetry best used for?
OpenTelemetry is most often used for instrumenting once and keeping the option to change observability vendor later, standardising telemetry across services written in different languages, routing and filtering telemetry centrally to control observability spend. Of those, instrumenting once and keeping the option to change observability vendor later and standardising telemetry across services written in different languages are not what Qovery is typically brought in for.
What can OpenTelemetry do that Qovery cannot?
OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Collector, Three signals, Auto-instrumentation. Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

OpenTelemetry: Is OpenTelemetry free?

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

Qovery: Does Qovery run my applications on its own servers?

No. It provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway account, so compute and data stay with your cloud provider and that bill is entirely separate from the Qovery licence.

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.

Qovery: Can I self-host Qovery?

Only on Enterprise. The deployment engine and console are GPL-3.0, but the control plane is closed source and the self-hosted and air-gapped deployments are commercial Enterprise features.

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.

Qovery: What does it cost?

Qovery does not publish a rate card. Team and Business are billed on usage and quoted through sales, and Enterprise is fully custom. There is a 14 day trial with no card required.

Qovery: What survives if I stop paying?

The Kubernetes cluster and the workloads keep running in your cloud account, but you lose the console, the deployment pipeline, preview environments and every process built on top of them.

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