# AWS X-Ray vs OpenTelemetry

**Leader by Vioscale score:** OpenTelemetry

| Attribute | AWS X-Ray | OpenTelemetry |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 63.6 (63% (medium)) | 70.9 (61% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 97 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 7,452 |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | - | 110,515,759 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Amazon CloudWatch Application Signals is an APM solution providing automatic instrumentation and observability for distributed applications across AWS services with prebuilt dashboards, service mapping, and AI-powered troubleshooting. | A standardized platform for instrumenting applications to collect traces, metrics, and logs. Data is collected through language-specific SDKs and services, then exported to any observability backend without requiring application code changes. |
| features.capabilities | `{"hosting":"cloud","trace_role":"backend","service_map":true,"trace_search":true,"metrics_correlation":true,"auto_instrumentation":"agent"}` | `{"logs":true,"hosting":"both","metrics":true,"tracing":true,"trace_role":"platform","otel_native":true,"service_map":true,"otel_support":"native","trace_search":true,"multi_protocol":true,"metrics_correlation":true,"auto_instrumentation":"agent"}` |
| integrations.count | - | 3 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Jaeger"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Zipkin"}]` |
| language.primary | - | Go |
| license.spdx | - | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"US","primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/xray/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-05T14:23:37.355Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://opentelemetry.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-24T22:37:05.387Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 14 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.159.0","date":"2026-08-17T17:37:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.159.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.158.0","date":"2026-08-04T13:44:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.158.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.157.0","date":"2026-07-21T12:38:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.157.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.156.0","date":"2026-07-07T07:29:34Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.156.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.155.0","date":"2026-06-23T16:56:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.155.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.154.0","date":"2026-06-08T23:51:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.154.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.153.0","date":"2026-05-25T08:09:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.153.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.152.1","date":"2026-05-19T19:53:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.152.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.152.0","date":"2026-05-11T11:48:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.152.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.151.0","date":"2026-04-28T18:57:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.151.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.150.0","date":"2026-04-13T11:06:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.150.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.149.0","date":"2026-03-31T13:43:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.149.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.148.0","date":"2026-03-17T13:42:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.148.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.147.0","date":"2026-03-02T15:09:00Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.147.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.146.1","date":"2026-02-18T13:48:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.146.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.146.0","date":"2026-02-17T21:22:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.146.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.145.0","date":"2026-02-02T18:22:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.145.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.144.0","date":"2026-01-20T09:41:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.144.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.143.0","date":"2026-01-05T20:27:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.143.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/releases/tag/v0.142.0","date":"2025-12-15T20:48:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.142.0"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.fedramp | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 7.9 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |

## Capabilities (Distributed Tracing Tools)

| Capability | AWS X-Ray | OpenTelemetry |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Core** |  |  |
| Trace role | Trace backend / store | SaaS platform |
| **Standards** |  |  |
| OpenTelemetry support | - | OTel-native |
| Multi-protocol (Jaeger + Zipkin + OTLP) | - | ✓ |
| **Query** |  |  |
| Trace search / filter by attributes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Service dependency graph | ✓ | ✓ |
| High-cardinality attribute exploration | - | - |
| **Sampling** |  |  |
| Tail-based / dynamic sampling | - | - |
| **Instrumentation** |  |  |
| Auto-instrumentation | Agent-based | Agent-based |
| **Correlation** |  |  |
| Correlate traces with metrics/logs | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Hosting | Cloud only | Cloud + self-hosted |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Storage backend | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:32:35.132Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*