| Integrations (Recommended) | Manual Instrumentation | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is? | Pre-built integrations for supported frameworks/LLM providers | You instrument your application to create spans via OpenTelemetry APIs. |
| When to use it? | If your application uses one of our supported integrations and you want to get tracing running quickly. | If your framework/model isn’t supported, or you need fine-grained control over spans, attributes, and data capture. |
| Can I customize it? | Yes; you can still add custom spans/attributes even after enabling auto-instrumentation. | Yes; you define your spans, attributes, events, metadata entirely as you wish. |
| Benefits | Fast time-to-value, minimal developer effort, gets you up and tracing quickly. | Maximum flexibility, fit for advanced use-cases, custom workflows, or non-standard stacks. |
Setup
Setup
Set up tracing in just a few minutes — choose integrations or manual instrumentation
You can set up tracing in two ways:
FAQ: Should I use an integration or manually instrument?