--- title: How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production description: Mastodon, a non-profit decentralized social platform with ~20 staff, shares how a single engineer runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in production across two large... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production | daily.dev og:description: Mastodon, a non-profit decentralized social platform with ~20 staff, shares how a single engineer runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in production across two large... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/jSuLMy88N.png og:image:alt: How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production **[OpenTelemetry](https://daily.dev/sources/opentelemetry)** · 9 min read · 13 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Mastodon, a non-profit decentralized social platform with ~20 staff, shares how a single engineer runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in production across two large Kubernetes deployments handling up to 10 million requests per minute. The setup uses one Collector per Kubernetes namespace, managed via the OpenTelemetry Operator and Argo CD, with no complex gateway tiers. Traffic is controlled through tail-based sampling (0.1% for successful traces, 100% for errors). The full production config is shared, including OTLP ingestion, Kubernetes metadata enrichment, resource detection, and Datadog export. Key lessons: keep architecture simple, use Kubernetes operators for lifecycle management, rely on semantic conventions, and upgrade frequently. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How Skyscanner scales OpenTelemetry: managing collectors across 24 production clusters](https://daily.dev/posts/how-skyscanner-scales-opentelemetry-managing-collectors-across-24-production-clusters-briwfxt15) · OpenTelemetry · 17 upvotes · 0 comments - [Inside Adobe's OpenTelemetry pipeline: simplicity at scale](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-adobe-s-opentelemetry-pipeline-simplicity-at-scale-xbmirj76w) · OpenTelemetry · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [OpenTelemetry Collector Follow-up Survey](https://daily.dev/posts/opentelemetry-collector-follow-up-survey-o5infomdx) · OpenTelemetry · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to build a cost-effective observability platform with OpenTelemetry](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-a-cost-effective-observability-platform-with-opentelemetry-z8pbichl4) · CNCF · 8 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to OTel: A blueprint for OpenTelemetry adoption](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-otel-a-blueprint-for-opentelemetry-adoption-fbrceulsq) · elastic · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devops](https://daily.dev/tags/devops), [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes), [#observability](https://daily.dev/tags/observability), [#opentelemetry](https://daily.dev/tags/opentelemetry) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n"},"datePublished":"2026-03-18T17:25:39.350Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T17:26:09.661Z","description":"Mastodon, a non-profit decentralized social platform with ~20 staff, shares how a single engineer runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in production across two large...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/98d24ffd1665dd1b58f33da16e02e5b6?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/98d24ffd1665dd1b58f33da16e02e5b6?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"OpenTelemetry","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"OpenTelemetry","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/058cf331ff204b6aa421b376d509f16e","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/opentelemetry"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-mastodon-runs-opentelemetry-collectors-in-production-jsulmy88n","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":13},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"devops,kubernetes,observability,opentelemetry","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"OpenTelemetry","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/opentelemetry"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How Mastodon Runs OpenTelemetry Collectors in Production"}]} ```