Compare OpenTelemetry backends

Cost-first and honest. Each page leads with what the other tool does better and ends with when simpletel is the wrong choice. Figures are as of October 2026, quoted from the vendor's own pricing page.

• simpletel vs Honeycomb — better high-cardinality exploration, Pro from $150/mo.
• simpletel vs Grafana Tempo — OSS and free to self-host, but you own the ops.
• simpletel vs Datadog — deepest platform, compounded per-signal pricing.

New to OTLP? Start with what an OTLP backend is and how to point any OpenTelemetry instrumentation at one. For cost at your volume, run the spend calculator; for the engineering, read how traces are stored and the agent-driven instrumentation guide.