opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http

Getting started with this exporter requires navigating OpenTelemetry's ecosystem, which can feel overwhelming initially. The documentation assumes familiarity with OTLP concepts, and you'll need to install multiple companion packages (opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-sdk) to actually use it. However, once configured, it works reliably. The basic setup is straightforward if you follow the official OpenTelemetry Python docs rather than this package's README alone.

Error messages are hit-or-miss. Connection failures provide helpful HTTP status codes and endpoint details, but configuration mistakes often result in silent failures or generic SDK errors that require digging through logs. Debugging authentication issues with collectors took me longer than expected due to vague error output.

In production, it's been rock-solid. The HTTP protocol is easier to troubleshoot than gRPC alternatives (you can use curl to test endpoints), and it handles network hiccups gracefully with retries. The package integrates cleanly with popular collectors like Jaeger and Grafana Tempo. Community support on GitHub is responsive, though Stack Overflow coverage is sparse—expect to rely on official docs and GitHub issues.

This package does what it promises: exports OpenTelemetry data via OTLP/HTTP with protobuf encoding. The API is straightforward with constructors that accept endpoint URLs and headers, making basic setup fairly intuitive. It integrates seamlessly with the broader OpenTelemetry Python ecosystem and works reliably in production environments once configured.

The main friction point is initial configuration. Error messages when endpoints are misconfigured or authentication fails can be cryptic, often buried in logs rather than surfaced clearly. The documentation assumes familiarity with OTLP concepts and doesn't provide enough real-world examples for common scenarios like adding authentication headers or handling different collector configurations. You'll likely spend time cross-referencing the main OpenTelemetry docs.

Type hints are present and functional, which helps with IDE autocomplete, though the API surface is minimal enough that this matters less. Once you have a working configuration, it's set-and-forget reliable. The package handles retries and batching sensibly with reasonable defaults.

This exporter handles the heavy lifting of serializing OpenTelemetry data to protobuf and shipping it over HTTP/HTTPS to collectors. The TLS configuration is sensible by default, using system certificates and supporting custom CA bundles through environment variables. Authentication via headers works cleanly for both API keys and bearer tokens, though you need to be careful about logging configurations since headers can leak credentials in debug output.

The main pain point is error handling - network failures and collector rejections sometimes surface generic exception messages that don't clearly indicate whether it's a serialization issue, network problem, or authentication failure. You'll spend time adding custom logging to diagnose production issues. Input validation is mostly handled upstream by the SDK, but malformed endpoint URLs fail late rather than at initialization time.

Dependency-wise, it pulls in the protobuf stack and core OTLP packages. Updates are regular and CVE response has been reasonable in my experience. The library follows OpenTelemetry's security model but doesn't add extra hardening - you're responsible for securing endpoints and managing credentials properly.