---
title: Documentation
linkTitle: Docs
menu: { main: { weight: 10 } }
aliases: [/docs/workshop/*]
---

OpenTelemetry, also known as OTel for short, is a vendor-neutral open-source
[Observability](concepts/observability-primer/#what-is-observability) framework
for instrumenting, generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data such as
[traces](concepts/observability-primer/#distributed-traces),
[metrics](concepts/observability-primer/#reliability--metrics),
[logs](concepts/observability-primer/#logs). As an industry-standard it is
[natively supported by a number of vendors](/ecosystem/vendors/).

![OpenTelemetry Reference Architecture](/img/otel_diagram.png)

> For an in-depth guide on OpenTelemetry, including documentation and guides on
> language-specific instrumentation or the Collector, please follow the links in
> the navigation bar.
