Eliminating Observability Vendor Lock-in with OpenTelemetry: A Hands-On Demo

https://ninad-desai.medium.com/eliminating-observability-ven...

Prometheus visualizing myapp_requests_total metric via OpenTelemetry and Docker-based Python app

Struggling to switch from Prometheus to Elasticsearch without rewriting your app? This hands-on guide shows how OpenTelemetry decouples your observability backend with zero app changes. Includes working Docker-based examples and step-by-step guidance.

Many teams unknowingly introduce observability vendor lock-in by instrumenting apps directly for Prometheus, Elasticsearch, or others.

In this hands-on article, I walk through how to solve this using OpenTelemetry — a vendor-neutral standard for metrics, logs, and traces. You'll learn:

The cost of vendor lock-in (with working Prometheus/Elasticsearch examples)
How OpenTelemetry simplifies observability architecture
Step-by-step setup using Docker and Python
Easily switching backends from Elasticsearch to Prometheus (without code change)

🔗 Read the full guide on Medium

Bonus: Source code included!