OTel Sucks (But Also Rocks!) - Juraci Paixão Kröhling, OllyGarden & Daniel Dyla, Dynatrace
Juraci Paixão Kröhling, OllyGarden, Daniel Dyla, Dynatrace
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 · Session
In a candid and highly engaging presentation at KubeCon EU, Juraci Paixão Kröhling from OligGarden and Daniel Dyla from Dynatrace tackled the complexities and contradictions of OpenTelemetry (OTEL) with a talk provocatively titled "OTel Sucks (But Also Rocks!)." The session aimed to provide a balanced, real-world perspective on the observability framework, acknowledging its significant challenges while celebrating its indispensable contributions to the modern cloud-native ecosystem. Far from a purely critical expose, the talk leveraged a unique format, featuring recorded testimonials from prominent engineers and community members—Adriel Perkins, James Moyesus (Atlassian), Elena Grahovac (Delivery Hero), and Alexander Magno—who shared their firsthand experiences, both positive and negative.
AI review
This talk, provocatively titled 'OTel Sucks (But Also Rocks!)', delivers a brutally honest and deeply technical assessment of OpenTelemetry from the perspective of maintainers and heavy users. It cuts through the marketing hype to provide a balanced view of OTel's immense power and its significant operational challenges, using real-world examples and candid testimonials. The session offers invaluable, actionable insights for any practitioner navigating the complexities of modern observability, particularly regarding auto-instrumentation pitfalls, semantic convention stability, and the…