TracePath vs Grafana LGTM.
One observability backend instead of four services to operate, with the same OpenTelemetry plumbing underneath.
We build TracePath, so read this with that in mind. Every claim about Grafana LGTM below comes from their own public documentation, checked on 2026-09-21, and we quote no competitor prices because they change without notice.
- The LGTM stack is powerful, battle-tested and genuinely open source. If you want full control of every storage layer, it is a good answer.
- It is also four or more stateful systems, each with its own object storage, retention policy and upgrade path. That is a real operations budget.
- TracePath gives you the same signals behind one managed backend, one query surface and one bill, with errors and session replay included rather than bolted on.
- Grafana stays useful alongside TracePath as a visualization layer, and TracePath imports Grafana dashboard JSON.
Side by side.
| Capability | TracePath | Grafana LGTM |
|---|---|---|
| Logs, traces and metrics in one UI | Yes | Yes |
| Stateful systems to operate | 0 (managed) | 4+ (self-run) |
| Error tracking & session replay | Yes | Separate products |
| Dashboards as code | Yes | Yes |
| OpenTelemetry ingest | Yes | Yes |
| Query languages to learn | 1 | 3 |
| Uptime monitors & on-call | Yes | Additional components |
| Who runs it | We do | You do (or Grafana Cloud) |
Capabilities verified 2026-09-21 against each vendor's public documentation. Products change — spotted something stale? Tell us.
Common questions.
Does TracePath replace Grafana dashboards?
For data that lives in TracePath, yes — and you can import your existing Grafana dashboard JSON instead of rebuilding panels by hand.
Can I keep Grafana and send it TracePath data?
Not today. TracePath does not expose a Grafana datasource, so the practical pattern while you evaluate is to fan out from your collector to both backends and compare them side by side.
Is self-hosting LGTM cheaper?
The software is free; the storage, the nodes and the engineer who keeps four stateful systems healthy are not. Compare against your own total cost rather than a licence fee.
Works with your stack.
Other comparisons
See your app the way users do.
Errors, traces, logs, replay and monitors in one OpenTelemetry-native backend, at a price you can predict.