Grafana Tempo is an open-source distributed tracing backend that stores 100% of traces at massive scale. Unlike Jaeger or Zipkin, Tempo requires only object storage (S3/GCS) — no complex databases.
Free, open source, by Grafana Labs. Pairs perfectly with Loki and Prometheus.
Why Use Tempo?
100% trace capture — no sampling, store every trace
Cheap storage — uses S3/GCS/Azure Blob, not databases
TraceQL — SQL-like query language for traces
Multi-protocol — accepts Jaeger, Zipkin, OTLP, and OpenCensus
Grafana integration — seamless dashboards and trace-to-log correlation
Quick Setup
1. Install
# Docker
docker run -d --name tempo -p 3200:3200 -p 4317:4317 grafana/tempo:latest -config.file=/etc/tempo.yaml
# Helm
helm install tempo grafana/tempo --set tempo.storage.trace.backend=s3
2. Send Traces (OTLP)
# Using curl with OTLP HTTP
curl -X POST http://localhost:4318/v1/traces \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"resourceSpans": [{
"resource": {"attributes": [{"key": "service.name", "value": {"stringValue": "web-scraper"}}]},
"scopeSpans": [{
"spans": [{
"traceId": "5B8EFFF798038103D269B633813FC60C",
"spanId": "EEE19B7EC3C1B174",
"name": "scrape-page",
"kind": 1,
"startTimeUnixNano": "1711612800000000000",
"endTimeUnixNano": "1711612801500000000",
"attributes": [{"key": "url", "value": {"stringValue": "https://example.com"}}]
}]
}]
}]
}'
3. Query Traces
TEMPO="http://localhost:3200"
# Get trace by ID
curl -s "$TEMPO/api/traces/5B8EFFF798038103D269B633813FC60C" | jq '.batches[].scopeSpans[].spans[] | {name: .name, duration_ms: ((.endTimeUnixNano | tonumber) - (.startTimeUnixNano | tonumber)) / 1e6}'
# Search with TraceQL
curl -s -G "$TEMPO/api/search" \
--data-urlencode 'q={span.service.name="web-scraper" && duration > 1s}' | jq '.traces[] | {traceID: .traceID, rootServiceName: .rootServiceName, duration: .durationMs}'
# Search tags
curl -s "$TEMPO/api/search/tags" | jq '.tagNames'
curl -s "$TEMPO/api/search/tag/service.name/values" | jq '.tagValues'
Python Example
from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.grpc.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
# Setup
provider = TracerProvider()
provider.add_span_processor(BatchSpanProcessor(
OTLPSpanExporter(endpoint="http://localhost:4317", insecure=True)
))
trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)
tracer = trace.get_tracer("web-scraper")
# Create spans
with tracer.start_as_current_span("scrape-site") as span:
span.set_attribute("site", "example.com")
with tracer.start_as_current_span("fetch-page"):
pass # HTTP request here
with tracer.start_as_current_span("parse-html"):
pass # Parsing here
import requests
TEMPO = "http://localhost:3200"
# Query traces
result = requests.get(f"{TEMPO}/api/search", params={
"q": '{span.service.name="web-scraper"}'
}).json()
for t in result.get("traces", []):
print(f"Trace: {t['traceID']} | Service: {t['rootServiceName']} | Duration: {t['durationMs']}ms")
Key Endpoints
| Endpoint | Description |
|---|---|
| /api/traces/{traceID} | Get trace by ID |
| /api/search | Search traces (TraceQL) |
| /api/search/tags | List available tags |
| /api/search/tag/{tag}/values | Tag values |
| /v1/traces (4318) | OTLP HTTP receiver |
| gRPC :4317 | OTLP gRPC receiver |
| /ready | Readiness check |
| /metrics | Prometheus metrics |
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