Every engineer has a war story. A critical service goes down, customers start complaining, and the team rushes to figure out what went wrong. You check logs, then metrics, then traces—but none of it fits neatly together. Time slips away, and so does trust in your system.

This is the world dash0 set out to change. Instead of piecing together observability from disconnected tools, dash0 brings everything—metrics, logs, and traces—into one fast, transparent, and OpenTelemetry-native platform.

What is Dash0?

Dash0 is an observability platform designed for modern, cloud-native engineering teams. Built on OpenTelemetry (OTel), it unifies telemetry data without locking it into proprietary formats. That means your data stays open, portable, and future-proof.

At its core, dash0 helps teams:

  • Debug faster

  • Reduce downtime

  • Control observability costs

  • Simplify monitoring across complex environments

Why Dash0 is Different

  • Open by Default: 100% OTel-native, with no vendor lock-in.

  • Transparent Pricing: Pay based on telemetry volume, not seats or hosts.

  • Blazing Speed: Powered by ClickHouse, optimized for high-cardinality queries.

  • Engineer-First Design: Built to solve real debugging problems, not add more noise.

Dash0 Features You’ll Actually Use

Metrics You Can Trust

Track SLIs and performance trends with long-term retention.

Distributed Tracing

Follow requests across microservices and spot bottlenecks quickly.

Logs in Context

Logs connect directly to metrics and traces, so you always see the bigger picture.

Dashboards & Service Maps

Understand dependencies instantly through interactive visualizations.

Alerts That Work

Set up proactive alerts and synthetic checks to catch issues before users do.

Config-as-Code

Version-control dashboards and alerts for better team collaboration.

How Dash0 Works Under the Hood

The backbone of dash0 is ClickHouse, a high-performance analytics database designed for speed. Even massive telemetry volumes can be queried in seconds.

Because dash0 is OTel-native, it doesn’t convert or restrict your data. You’re free to collect, analyze, and export telemetry however you choose.

Who Should Use Dash0?

  • Developers: Debug production issues without juggling tools.

  • SREs: Monitor reliability and cut mean time to recovery (MTTR).

  • Platform Engineers: Manage Kubernetes workloads with clarity.

  • Scaling Teams: Add observability without surprise bills.

Dash0’s Pricing Model

Legacy observability tools often rely on complex pricing—charging per host, per seat, or per query. This unpredictability makes planning difficult.

Dash0 flips the model. Pricing is based only on the volume of telemetry you send. Usage dashboards let you track costs by team, service, or namespace, so you stay in control.

Dash0 vs The Competition

Dash0 vs Datadog

Datadog is powerful but expensive. Dash0 is lean, transparent, and OTel-native.

Dash0 vs New Relic

New Relic reformats data into proprietary systems. Dash0 keeps everything open.

Dash0 vs Prometheus + Grafana

Prometheus and Grafana are great for DIY setups but require heavy maintenance. Dash0 works right out of the box.

Dash0 in Action

Imagine your checkout service starts failing during peak traffic. With dash0, you notice error spikes in metrics, follow a trace to the failing service, and check logs tied directly to that trace. Within minutes, the root cause is identified and fixed.

No tool-hopping. No wasted time.

Common Use Cases

  • Debugging slow APIs by linking traces to logs.

  • Monitoring Kubernetes workloads efficiently.

  • Reducing observability costs with transparent usage dashboards.

  • Accelerating incident response during outages.

Best Practices with Dash0

  • Use consistent labeling for telemetry data.

  • Apply sampling for high-volume traces.

  • Check cost dashboards weekly.

  • Store dashboards and alerts in version control.

The Future of Observability with Dash0

The future of observability is open and fast. Proprietary tools with opaque pricing are giving way to platforms like dash0, which put engineers back in control. With OpenTelemetry at its core, dash0 makes observability flexible, transparent, and accessible for teams of all sizes.

Conclusion

Observability shouldn’t be complicated, slow, or expensive. Dash0 is proof that it doesn’t have to be. By unifying metrics, traces, and logs into one platform, dash0 helps engineering teams debug faster, manage systems more effectively, and keep costs under control.

If you’re tired of wrestling with scattered tools and unpredictable bills, it’s time to rethink observability—with dash0.

FAQS

Q1: What does dash0 do?
Dash0 unifies logs, metrics, and traces into one observability platform.

Q2: Who benefits from dash0?
Developers, SREs, and platform engineers who want faster debugging and simpler monitoring.

Q3: How does dash0 pricing work?
Dash0 charges based on telemetry volume, not hosts or seats.

Q4: Can dash0 monitor Kubernetes?
Yes, it provides deep insights into workloads, pods, and namespaces.

Q5: How is dash0 different from Datadog?
Dash0 is leaner, more affordable, and fully OTel-native, while Datadog is pricier and more complex.