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Nicely designed site, great logo, but after clicking around a bit (and looking at GitHub) I’m confused by what this product actually is. DataDog has a UI. Does

by tailspin2019 6y ago

Nicely designed site, great logo, but after clicking around a bit (and looking at GitHub) I’m confused by what this product actually is. DataDog has a UI. Does Opstrace? Or is it just a CLI/API based tool? If you actually have a UI element to your product you’re doing a huge disservice to yourself by not actually showing this anywhere... EDIT: I don’t mean to sound negative, I’m wondering if positioning this against Datadog is going to create immediate, potentially incorrect, expectations in people’s minds as to what this product might provide. From first impressions I’d say this is much closer to Prometheus (which does have a UI but it’s so basic it may as well not - but then the UI is not the point of Prometheus).

fat-apple 6y ago
Thanks for that feedback - we've got a lot of work to do to make that more clear! We're still early in our journey so we’re not there yet, but we’re moving fast. We're working on a new collaborative UI for interacting with your data in a way that solves a lot of problems we've witnessed with current monitoring UIs (let me know if you want more detail). It's in early development and we haven't released it yet, so while Opstrace does have a UI now, it's currently limited to system management (adding/removing users and tenants). For interacting with data, we currently ship a Grafana instance per tenant. The roadmap has some basic information about this (might not be something you stumbled across). Let me know if I can clarify anything else. https://opstrace.com/docs/references/roadmap https://opstrace.com/docs/references/roadmap
- tailspin2019 6y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. I think all the great work you’re doing on this is at risk of being diminished by pushing the DataDog comparison so hard when really there is (currently) no comparison in my view. Not to say you won’t get there, but why not shout about your current strengths right now (if you’re going to talk about the product) and not necessarily where you hope to be. I only make this point because the “open source DataDog” headline just spins me off in the complete wrong direction as a newcomer and I end up confused and somewhat underwhelmed. With better positioning this wouldn’t have been the case! That said, the project looks v interesting so keep up the good work and I hope you take my constructive criticism in the way it’s intended!
  - fat-apple 6y ago
    Thanks for the great feedback, definitely understand where you're coming from and we'll keep that in mind moving forward! Very much appreciate the constructive criticism!
Denzel 6y ago
The headline feels deliberately clickbait-y and disingenuous. I love and support the idea. Aspirationally, the founders may want to compete with Datadog, but OpsTrace overlaps some small percentage of Datadog’s feature set. I’m surprised the mods haven’t edited this title. Source: I’m an engineer that’s used, operated and hacked on a medium-sized prom+grafana; and used Datadog at a large, multi-region, global scale.
- fat-apple 6y ago
  Thanks for your support! We’re still early in our journey when compared to the featureset Datadog has built over time, but we definitely aspire to bridge the best of Datadog and open source. Based on your experience, what sorts of features would you prioritize to get there?
- dang 6y ago
  Sorry about that! I didn't see anything wrong with the title but I'm not familiar with Datadog's feature set. If you take the title as aspirational, it may make more sense.
  - spahl 6y ago
    It's definitely aspirational. With time and work the features gap (for the important ones) will narrow:-) What we want to emphasize is that it is possible to build this and have the advantages of a Datadog without the drawbacks.
  - Denzel 6y ago
    No need to be sorry, you do a great job moderating HN dang! I just felt let down because the promise of the title (which I was excited by) doesn’t match reality in that it’s quite impossible to deliver Datadog’s feature set for metrics, traces, and logs — and tie all three together — on top of prometheus+grafana because the underlying TSDB doesn’t even support the notion of user-customizable indexing. Prometheus indexes all labels, which is why most Prometheus users even have to worry about high cardinality and time series explosion. This is one point highlighting how OpsTrace’s current architecture can not satisfy their positioning; there are many more. I’m sure they’re aware of them. As an aspiration, the title makes sense. As someone in their target market, I was a bit turned off by the embellishment.

fat-apple 6y ago

Thanks for that feedback - we've got a lot of work to do to make that more clear! We're still early in our journey so we’re not there yet, but we’re moving fast. We're working on a new collaborative UI for interacting with your data in a way that solves a lot of problems we've witnessed with current monitoring UIs (let me know if you want more detail). It's in early development and we haven't released it yet, so while Opstrace does have a UI now, it's currently limited to system management (adding/removing users and tenants). For interacting with data, we currently ship a Grafana instance per tenant. The roadmap has some basic information about this (might not be something you stumbled across). Let me know if I can clarify anything else. https://opstrace.com/docs/references/roadmap https://opstrace.com/docs/references/roadmap

tailspin2019 6y ago
Thanks for clarifying. I think all the great work you’re doing on this is at risk of being diminished by pushing the DataDog comparison so hard when really there is (currently) no comparison in my view. Not to say you won’t get there, but why not shout about your current strengths right now (if you’re going to talk about the product) and not necessarily where you hope to be. I only make this point because the “open source DataDog” headline just spins me off in the complete wrong direction as a newcomer and I end up confused and somewhat underwhelmed. With better positioning this wouldn’t have been the case! That said, the project looks v interesting so keep up the good work and I hope you take my constructive criticism in the way it’s intended!
- fat-apple 6y ago
  Thanks for the great feedback, definitely understand where you're coming from and we'll keep that in mind moving forward! Very much appreciate the constructive criticism!

Denzel 6y ago

The headline feels deliberately clickbait-y and disingenuous. I love and support the idea. Aspirationally, the founders may want to compete with Datadog, but OpsTrace overlaps some small percentage of Datadog’s feature set. I’m surprised the mods haven’t edited this title. Source: I’m an engineer that’s used, operated and hacked on a medium-sized prom+grafana; and used Datadog at a large, multi-region, global scale.

fat-apple 6y ago
Thanks for your support! We’re still early in our journey when compared to the featureset Datadog has built over time, but we definitely aspire to bridge the best of Datadog and open source. Based on your experience, what sorts of features would you prioritize to get there?
dang 6y ago
Sorry about that! I didn't see anything wrong with the title but I'm not familiar with Datadog's feature set. If you take the title as aspirational, it may make more sense.
- spahl 6y ago
  It's definitely aspirational. With time and work the features gap (for the important ones) will narrow:-) What we want to emphasize is that it is possible to build this and have the advantages of a Datadog without the drawbacks.
- Denzel 6y ago
  No need to be sorry, you do a great job moderating HN dang! I just felt let down because the promise of the title (which I was excited by) doesn’t match reality in that it’s quite impossible to deliver Datadog’s feature set for metrics, traces, and logs — and tie all three together — on top of prometheus+grafana because the underlying TSDB doesn’t even support the notion of user-customizable indexing. Prometheus indexes all labels, which is why most Prometheus users even have to worry about high cardinality and time series explosion. This is one point highlighting how OpsTrace’s current architecture can not satisfy their positioning; there are many more. I’m sure they’re aware of them. As an aspiration, the title makes sense. As someone in their target market, I was a bit turned off by the embellishment.