🔭 Setup SigNoz — Open-Source APM & Observability
Deploy SigNoz on Ubuntu for full-stack application observability: distributed tracing, metrics, and logs in a single self-hosted platform.
4 GB RAM for a stable setup (8 GB recommended for production).📦 Resources & Setup Scripts
Grab the automated bash script from GitHub to follow along with the video.
Quick Install:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mhmdali94/Docker/main/monitoring/signoz/signoz-ubuntu.sh
chmod +x signoz-ubuntu.sh
sudo bash signoz-ubuntu.shTutorial Steps
1 Download the Script
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mhmdali94/Docker/main/monitoring/signoz/signoz-ubuntu.sh2 Make it Executable
chmod +x signoz-ubuntu.sh3 Run the Installer
The script installs Docker if needed, then deploys SigNoz with ClickHouse and all backend services automatically.
sudo bash signoz-ubuntu.sh4 Access the Web UI
Open your browser and navigate to:
http://<your-server-ip>:33015 Instrument Your Application
Add an OpenTelemetry SDK to your app and point it to the SigNoz collector to start sending traces and metrics.
Ports Used
| Port | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 3301 | SigNoz Web UI |
| 4317 | OTLP gRPC (OpenTelemetry — internal) |
| 4318 | OTLP HTTP (OpenTelemetry — internal) |
Overview
SigNoz is an open-source DataDog alternative that provides distributed tracing, metrics, and log management in a single platform. Built on OpenTelemetry and ClickHouse, it gives you correlated views across all three pillars of observability without vendor lock-in. Ideal for engineering teams who want APM-grade visibility over their applications.
Why Use It
SigNoz replaces paid APM tools like DataDog or New Relic with a self-hosted, open-source platform that costs a fraction of the price. By using OpenTelemetry as the instrumentation standard, you avoid SDK lock-in and can switch backends freely. The correlated traces-metrics-logs view makes debugging production issues dramatically faster.
When You Need It
Who Should Use It
Real Use Cases
Main Features
How to Use After Installation
Security Best Practices
Ports and Firewall Notes
SigNoz frontend listens on port 3301. OTLP gRPC is on 4317 and OTLP HTTP on 4318 — keep both internal-only for your instrumented apps. Open 3301 to your local network; expose externally only behind Nginx with SSL.
Backup and Maintenance
Common Mistakes
Troubleshooting
Alternatives
Jaeger (traces only, no metrics/logs), Tempo + Grafana (traces without the APM layer), OpenObserve (lighter, no dedicated APM view), Elastic APM (heavier, requires Elasticsearch). SigNoz is the best open-source DataDog-equivalent for teams that want one unified platform.
When Not to Use It
If you have a simple monolith with no distributed tracing needs, Grafana + Prometheus is simpler and lighter. SigNoz adds value at the microservices layer — if you have one service, the overhead isn't worth it.
PrismaTechWork Professional Help
PrismaTechWork provides end-to-end infrastructure services — from initial deployment and security hardening to ongoing monitoring, automated backups, and dedicated support. Whether you need a single-server setup or a multi-site network, our team ensures your infrastructure is built right, secured properly, and maintained reliably.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to change my application code to use SigNoz?
Yes, you need to add an OpenTelemetry SDK to your application and configure it to export to SigNoz's collector. The SDK is available for all major languages (Python, Node.js, Java, Go, .NET). For some frameworks, auto-instrumentation handles most of the work with zero code changes.
Is SigNoz completely free?
The community edition is fully open-source and free. SigNoz offers a paid cloud version and an enterprise plan with SSO and additional features. For self-hosted use, there are no licensing costs — just your infrastructure.
How much data can SigNoz handle?
ClickHouse scales very well — production deployments handle billions of trace spans per day on reasonable hardware. For a small team (under 10 services), a 4-core, 8 GB RAM server is sufficient. Set retention policies to control disk usage.
Can SigNoz replace Grafana + Prometheus?
It can handle metrics and basic dashboards, but Grafana's ecosystem of plugins, data sources, and panel types is far richer. Many teams use both: SigNoz for APM and tracing, Grafana for infrastructure metrics and custom dashboards.
Does SigNoz support logs?
Yes, SigNoz has a Logs tab with full-text search. You can ship logs via the OpenTelemetry Collector using filelog or fluentforward receivers, or send structured logs directly from your application's OTel SDK.
What is OpenTelemetry and why does SigNoz use it?
OpenTelemetry (OTel) is a CNCF standard for instrumenting applications to produce traces, metrics, and logs. SigNoz uses it as the instrumentation layer to avoid vendor lock-in — you can switch to any OTel-compatible backend (Jaeger, Tempo, Zipkin) later without changing your application code.
How do I set up alerts in SigNoz?
In the SigNoz UI, go to Alerts → New Alert. You can create metric-based, trace-based, or log-based alerts using PromQL-like queries. Notifications can be sent to Slack, PagerDuty, OpsGenie, or any webhook endpoint.
How do I update SigNoz?
Run `docker compose pull && docker compose up -d` in your SigNoz directory. Check the SigNoz release notes on GitHub before updating — ClickHouse schema migrations may run automatically on startup.