Get started with distributed tracing for Node.js with OpenTelemetry

Get complete visibility into your Node.js application with open source instrumentation from the OpenTelemetry project and distributed tracing from Lightstep.

How is Lightstep's
distributed tracing different?


  • Easy to set up and use, no matter how complex your system
  • Use OpenTelemetry or connect existing Jaeger or Zipkin data
  • Ingests 100% of unsampled event data, rather than head or tail-based sampling
  • Instant insights pinpoint exactly what causes latency, errors, or issues across your stack

Built on open source


Automatic instrumentation for popular programming languages lets you go from installation to insights in a matter of minutes – virtually no code changes required and no vendor lock-in.

Full context problem-solving


Find the cause for every effect, across any number of service boundaries. Lightstep surfaces root causes in seconds, providing the exact logs, metrics, and traces needed to simplify and solve even the most complex investigations.

Complete system visibility


Give your team end-to-end visibility across your stack — any app, any service, any cloud. Move seamlessly from a high-level view of dependencies to specific services, operations, traces, or any other signals contributing to issues in production.

Distributed Tracing — from the team that created distributed tracing


Our leadership team helped build Google’s tracing and metrics technology, and co-created open source projects like OpenTracing and OpenTelemetry. Their experiences help guide our understanding of the benefits, risks, and pitfalls of monitoring complex environments.


"Lightstep tells us about performance problems within seconds, and we're able to go straight to the root cause in the production system."

Rob Figueredo
Vice President of Engineering, Yext