Overview
Uptrace is a smaller, focused alternative to SigNoz and Grafana for teams on OpenTelemetry. It stores traces, logs and metrics in ClickHouse and presents service graphs, request rate, error rate and latency percentiles, slowest endpoints, top errors and log patterns in one place. It ingests OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Vector, FluentBit and CloudWatch data.
Uptrace Cloud is priced only on what you ingest: per GB of spans and logs and per million metric datapoints, with no seat or host fees, automatic volume discounts and a hard monthly cap it promises never to exceed. Data is held in Hetzner's German data centres with backups in Finland, which suits EU teams.
You can also self-host it from GitHub for free, or buy an on-premises licence with support. It is a practical choice for small teams that want tracing without Datadog prices and without operating a large stack.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
50 GB of spans and logs free every month on Uptrace Cloud, with unlimited users, services and hosts; the self-hosted edition is free with no feature limits.
At the limit Not stated The vendor does not say what happens at the limit, or we have not found it yet.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted | $0 | Download from GitHub, no feature limits |
| Cloud | 50 GB free, then from $0.075/GB | Metrics from $0.025 per 1M datapoints; volume discounts down to $0.016/GB; 28-day retention |
| On-premises licence | Custom | Terraform/Ansible automation, custom retention, dedicated support engineer |
What it does
- Service overview
- Service graph, RED metrics, p50 to p99 latency and slowest endpoints in one dashboard.
- Distributed tracing
- OpenTelemetry traces stored in ClickHouse, billed by data size rather than span count.
- Logs and errors
- Logs and errors stored alongside spans, with frequent log patterns surfaced.
- Metrics
- Metrics billed per datapoint, collection intervals down to 10 seconds.
- Budget cap
- Set a monthly ceiling and Uptrace will not bill above it.
- Many ingest sources
- OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Vector, FluentBit and CloudWatch.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- 50 GB free each month and low per-GB rates.
- No per-seat or per-host fees; hard budget cap.
- Cloud data stored in Germany.
- Can be self-hosted from GitHub.
Limitations
- Smaller company and community than SigNoz or Grafana.
- Default cloud retention is 28 days; longer needs paid cold storage.
- No uptime checks or status pages.
- Sending data from AWS or GCP incurs your cloud's egress fees.
Who it suits
Good for
- Small teams adopting OpenTelemetry tracing
- EU teams wanting data stored in Germany
- Cost-conscious startups moving off Datadog or New Relic
Look elsewhere if
- Teams needing a large vendor with enterprise contracts and certifications
- Frontend error tracking or uptime monitoring
Alternatives to Uptrace
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Better Stack Uptime, logs, errors and incident management | $29/mo | Free tier | |
| Grafana Cloud Hosted metrics, logs, traces and dashboards | $19/mo | Free tier | |
| OpenObserve Open-source logs, metrics, traces and RUM platform | Usage-based | Free tier | |
| SigNoz Open-source OpenTelemetry APM, logs and metrics | $49/mo | Free tier | |
| OneUptime Open-source uptime, status pages, on-call, APM and logs | $22/mo | Free tier | |
| AppSignal APM with errors, logs, hosts and uptime | $23.25/mo | Free tier |
Questions
Is Uptrace free?
Uptrace Cloud includes 50 GB free every month, and the self-hosted edition is free to run.
How much does Uptrace cost after the free tier?
From about $0.075 to $0.10 per GB of spans and logs, dropping with volume, and from $0.025 per million metric datapoints.
Where does Uptrace store data?
Uptrace Cloud runs in Hetzner data centres in Germany with backups in Finland.
Can I cap my Uptrace bill?
Yes, you can set a monthly budget cap and Uptrace will not bill above it.
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