SigNoz vs Traceloop
Both are observability & tracing tools. Here is how they actually differ on price, billing model and deployment.
SigNoz
An open-source Datadog alternative that handles LLM telemetry as part of full-stack observability rather than as a separate product. Free to license, but you are running ClickHouse - the cost is infrastructure and ops, not fees.
Traceloop
The company behind OpenLLMetry, acquired by ServiceNow in March 2026 to power AI Control Tower. The Apache-2.0 SDK is safe and still actively developed - the managed platform's standalone future is the open question.
| SigNoz | Traceloop | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Observability & Tracing | Observability & Tracing |
| Our rating | 4/5 | 3/5 |
| Starting price | $19/mo (startup) or $49/mo | Custom |
| Billing meter | gb-ingested | span |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free self-hosting | Yes, free | Yes, free |
| Best for | Teams that want one observability backend for their whole stack rather than a separate LLM tool, are cost-sensitive relative to Datadog, and either have ClickHouse operational capacity or will pay for cloud. | Teams that want vendor-neutral OpenTelemetry LLM instrumentation via OpenLLMetry, which is genuinely safe to adopt. The managed platform suits existing ServiceNow customers, or teams needing air-gapped deployment who can get contractual clarity on the roadmap. |
Our verdict on SigNoz
SigNoz is the right answer to a question many teams are actually asking - not "which LLM observability tool" but "how do I see my LLM calls alongside everything else without paying Datadog prices." It handles LLM telemetry as one workload within full-stack observability, giving token-level tracing, per-model cost attribution and prompt latency breakdown, all correlated with the databases and microservices underneath. It is genuinely open source and self-hostable with no feature gating. Two honest caveats. Self-hosted free covers the license and nothing else - you are operating ClickHouse, which is resource-hungry, and you inherit the on-call burden of your own monitoring stack going down. And there is no evaluation capability whatsoever, so if you need LLM-as-judge scoring, datasets or regression testing, SigNoz is half your stack and you will pair it with something like DeepEval or promptfoo.
Full SigNoz review →Our verdict on Traceloop
Split this decision in two, because the SDK and the platform now carry very different risk. OpenLLMetry - the Apache-2.0 OpenTelemetry extension - is one of the safest things you can adopt in this category. It is permissively licensed, the team publicly committed it stays that way, it exports to 25+ backends including Datadog, and it remained actively maintained through the acquisition. You can instrument with it and never create a Traceloop account. The managed platform is a different question. ServiceNow acquired Traceloop in March 2026, reportedly for $60 to $80 million, and shipped the integration into AI Control Tower at Knowledge 2026 in May. The stated strategic purpose is enterprise AI governance inside ServiceNow, not an independent observability product. The site still promotes signups and nothing suggests a Helicone-style wind-down, but a standalone product whose parent bought it for a different purpose is a roadmap you do not control. Use the SDK freely. Get contractual clarity before you build on the platform.
Full Traceloop review →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between SigNoz and Traceloop?
SigNoz: Teams that want one observability backend for their whole stack rather than a separate LLM tool, are cost-sensitive relative to Datadog, and either have ClickHouse operational capacity or will pay for cloud. Traceloop: Teams that want vendor-neutral OpenTelemetry LLM instrumentation via OpenLLMetry, which is genuinely safe to adopt. The managed platform suits existing ServiceNow customers, or teams needing air-gapped deployment who can get contractual clarity on the roadmap. Both sit in Observability & Tracing, so the decision usually comes down to billing model and deployment rather than raw capability.
Which is cheaper, SigNoz or Traceloop?
It depends entirely on your workload shape, because they meter differently - SigNoz bills on gb-ingested and Traceloop bills on span. Published starting prices are $19/mo (startup) or $49/mo and Custom respectively, but those numbers are not comparable until you apply them to the same traffic. Use our cost calculator to model both against your own request volume and span count.
Can I self-host SigNoz or Traceloop?
SigNoz: Yes, free. Traceloop: Yes, free. Free self-hosting means no licence fee, not no cost - you still own the infrastructure, upgrades and on-call.