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Cloud · head to head

OpenTelemetry vs Restate

OpenTelemetry logo

OpenTelemetry

Cloud

Vendor-neutral standard for traces, metrics and logs

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

Durable execution engine in Rust with a free tier and low-latency workflows

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: OpenTelemetry genuinely complex to adopt: collectors, pipelines, samplers and exporters are a system to run in their own right; Restate the runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • They diverge on capability: OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Restate covers Durable execution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which OpenTelemetry and Restate actually diverge.

Attributes where OpenTelemetry and Restate differ
AttributeOpenTelemetryRestate
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer month by durable action count
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, DockerLinux, macOS, Web
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools

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 OpenTelemetry

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

Only in Restate

  • Durable execution
  • Virtual objects
  • Single binary runtime
  • Multi-language SDKs
  • Workflows and sagas
  • Restate Cloud

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 Restate
  • Standardising telemetry across services written in different languagesnot Restate
  • Routing and filtering telemetry centrally to control observability spendnot Restate

Restate

  • Payment or order flows where a crash between two external API calls must not double-charge or lose the ordernot OpenTelemetry
  • AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot OpenTelemetry
  • Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot OpenTelemetry
  • A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot 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

Restate

  • The runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • Restate Cloud jumps from a free fifty thousand actions straight to 300 US dollars a month for twenty million, so a workload sitting at a few hundred thousand actions pays enterprise-shaped money for hobby-shaped volume.
  • It is a young project against Temporal’s established base, so hiring engineers who already know it is unrealistic and the answer to most questions is in the docs rather than on Stack Overflow.
  • The programming model requires structuring code around durable handlers and virtual objects, which is a genuine rewrite for existing services rather than a library you add.
  • The single-binary simplicity that makes small deployments cheap also means fewer operational knobs at very large scale than a system designed as separable components.

Pricing, plan by plan

OpenTelemetry

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

Restate

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Fifty thousand durable actions per month
    • No credit card required
    • Community support
  • Starter$300/month
    • Twenty million actions per month
    • Two hundred actions per second, bursting to one thousand
    • Twenty GB storage
  • Pro$1000/month
    • Fifty million actions per month
    • Five hundred actions per second, bursting to two thousand
    • Fifty GB storage
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated volume
    • Twenty-four seven P0 support
    • 99.99 per cent SLA

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 Restate if

  • You need durable execution.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Web.
  • You also want virtual objects.
Restate review

Questions people ask

Is OpenTelemetry or Restate better?
Neither clearly leads. OpenTelemetry starts at Free and Restate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, OpenTelemetry or Restate?
OpenTelemetry starts at Free and Restate at Free.
Does OpenTelemetry or Restate run on more platforms?
OpenTelemetry runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Docker. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
Can I use OpenTelemetry for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
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 Restate is typically brought in for.
What can OpenTelemetry do that Restate cannot?
OpenTelemetry covers Vendor-neutral SDKs, Collector, Three signals, Auto-instrumentation. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.

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.

Restate: Is Restate open source?

The SDKs are MIT. The runtime is under a Business Source Licence, which permits self-hosting but not offering it as a competing service.

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.

Restate: How does it compare with Temporal?

Same problem, different shape: one Rust binary with embedded storage instead of a server plus database plus workers, and lower per-step latency.

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.

Restate: Is there a free tier?

Yes, fifty thousand durable actions a month on Restate Cloud with no card required.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python and Rust.

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