If you want application performance monitoring you can self-host and own, these are the strongest open-source APM tools in 2026, ordered by OpenTelemetry support, completeness and how much you have to operate yourself.
Open-source APM means owning the stack: no per-host licence, but you run it. We ordered by OpenTelemetry-native support and how complete the tool is out of the box. Ops Singularity is not open source, so it is not ranked here; where it fits is noted at the end.
Open-source, OpenTelemetry-native APM with traces, metrics and logs in one tool. The most complete out-of-the-box open-source APM, a common Datadog alternative.
Read the comparison →The CNCF standard for open-source distributed tracing. Best when tracing is your core need; pair it with a metrics stack for full APM.
Scalable, cost-efficient trace storage that pairs with Prometheus and Loki. Best for teams already on the Grafana LGTM stack.
Read the comparison →Full-featured open-source APM with service maps and agents for many languages. Best for microservice-heavy estates wanting an all-in-one OSS APM.
A simple, proven, lightweight distributed tracing system. Best for a minimal, easy-to-run tracing setup.
APM built on the Elastic Stack, strong if you already run Elasticsearch for logs and search. Self-manageable, though operating Elasticsearch at scale is its own job.
Read the comparison →These open-source tools are excellent at collecting and showing APM data, and most are OpenTelemetry-native. What none of them do is resolve the incidents they surface. Ops Singularity is commercial, not open source, but it is OpenTelemetry-native, so teams keep their open-source APM and add Ops Singularity for governed, autonomous resolution on top of the same telemetry.
For a complete, OpenTelemetry-native, self-hosted APM, SigNoz is the usual pick; Jaeger and Grafana Tempo lead for tracing specifically. The right choice depends on whether you want an all-in-one tool or to compose the Grafana stack.
No. Ops Singularity is a commercial platform. It is OpenTelemetry-native, so it complements open-source APM tools by adding governed autonomous resolution on top of the telemetry they collect.
Bring a real incident. We will show you Sentinel investigate, act and verify end to end, with every action reversible and audited.