---
title: OpenTelemetry Metrics
description: Datadog, the leading service for cloud-scale monitoring.
breadcrumbs: Docs > Metrics > OpenTelemetry Metrics
---

# OpenTelemetry Metrics

## Overview{% #overview %}

[OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/) is an open source observability framework that provides IT teams with standardized protocols and tools for collecting and routing telemetry data. Created as an incubator project by the [Cloud Native Computing Foundation](https://www.cncf.io/) (CNCF), OpenTelemetry provides a consistent format for instrumenting, generating, gathering, and exporting application telemetry data—namely metrics, logs, and traces—to monitoring platforms for analysis and insight.

## Setup{% #setup %}

To send OpenTelemetry metrics to Datadog, you have three main options:

- [OpenTelemetry Collector](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/setup/collector_exporter/)
- [Datadog Agent](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/setup/agent)
- [Agentless Deployment](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/setup/agentless)

For more information about which setup is right for you, see [Send OpenTelemetry Data to Datadog](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/setup/).

## Query across Datadog and OpenTelemetry metrics{% #query-across-datadog-and-opentelemetry-metrics %}

Because OTel and Datadog metrics often use different naming conventions and semantic definitions, creating a unified view of your infrastructure in these environments can be challenging.

Datadog helps you bridge this gap by enabling you to:

- Query OTel and Datadog metrics together.
- Understand how OTel and Datadog metrics map to each other.

For more information, read [Query Across Datadog and OpenTelemetry Metrics](https://docs.datadoghq.com/metrics/open_telemetry/query_metrics).

## OTLP metric types{% #otlp-metric-types %}

The Datadog Agent and the OpenTelemetry Collector Datadog exporter can ingest metrics in the OpenTelemetry format (OTLP), which can be produced by OpenTelemetry-instrumented applications.

For more information, read [OTLP metric types](https://docs.datadoghq.com/metrics/open_telemetry/otlp_metric_types).

## Out-of-the-box dashboards{% #out-of-the-box-dashboards %}

Datadog provides out-of-the-box dashboards that you can copy and customize. To use Datadog's out-of-the-box OpenTelemetry dashboards, go to **Dashboards** > **Dashboards list** and search for `opentelemetry`:

{% image
   source="https://datadog-docs.imgix.net/images/metrics/otel/dashboard.161680b5f01d3820e6be7d599bd15b7d.png?auto=format"
   alt="The Dashboards list, showing two OpenTelemetry out-of-the-box dashboards: Host Metrics and Collector Metrics." /%}

The **Host Metrics** dashboard is for data collected from the [host metrics receiver](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/receiver/hostmetricsreceiver). The **Collector Metrics** dashboard is for any other types of metrics collected, depending on which [metrics receiver](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/receiver) you choose to enable.

## Further reading{% #further-reading %}

- [Learn more about OpenTelemetry](https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/)
- [Send metrics and traces from OpenTelemetry Collector to Datadog via Datadog Exporter](https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/ingest-opentelemetry-traces-metrics-with-datadog-exporter/)