Datadog tracing libraries provide an implementation of the OpenTelemetry API for instrumenting your code. This means you can maintain vendor-neutral instrumentation of your services, while still taking advantage of Datadog’s native implementation, features, and products.

Note: You can also send your OpenTelemetry API instrumented traces to Datadog using the OTel Collector.

By instrumenting your code with OpenTelemetry APIs, your code:

• Remains free of vendor-specific API calls.
• Does not depend on Datadog tracing libraries at compile time (only runtime).

Replace the OpenTelemetry SDK with the Datadog tracing library in the instrumented application, and the traces produced by your running code can be processed, analyzed, and monitored alongside Datadog traces and in Datadog proprietary products such as Continuous Profiler, Data Streams Monitoring, Application Security Management, and Live Processes.

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Further reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Instrument a custom method to get deep visibility into your business logicDOCUMENTATION Connect your Logs and Traces togetherDOCUMENTATION Explore your services, resources, and tracesDOCUMENTATION Learn More about Datadog and the OpenTelemetry initiativeBLOG