Open standards in 2026: The backbone of modern observability

Grafana Labs' 2026 Observability Survey reveals that open source and open standards have become central to modern observability strategies across organizations.

• •77% of respondents say open source and open standards are important to their observability strategy, with 61% calling them "very important" or "essential"
• •Prometheus and OpenTelemetry are the two dominant open standards; 65% of respondents invest in both, with Prometheus leading in production use (59% vs. 41%)
• •OpenTelemetry is adopted broadly across metrics (57%), traces (50%), and logs (48%), with a higher growth trajectory than Prometheus (47% increased usage vs. 42%)
• •Interoperability with other tools (26%) and open source basis (25%) rank among the top criteria when selecting new observability tools
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