Native OpenTelemetry metrics ingestion, storage, and analysis

[nblumhardt]

Metrics optimize storage and retrieval of numeric time-series data.

Seq 2026.1 will support OTLP ingestion of OpenTelemetry metrics, alongside a simplified JSON metrics ingestion API.

Metrics will be supported on Seq dashboards, through custom queries, and in a completely new metrics discovery and visualization UX.

Behind the scenes, Seq will use compressed columnar storage for metric data of arbitrary cardinality.

The API and plug-in app mechanism will provide the necessary extension points for ingestion of metrics from other sources.

We're aiming to ship an early preview in late 2025, with an RTM ship date in 2026.

[gmij]

I'm particularly looking forward to the columnar storage compression capability. Currently, with large data volumes, SEQ's query performance and dashboard response speed significantly impact usability.

[liammclennan]

Hi @gmij

We are looking forward to this too. :)

Send a message to support@datalust.co if you would like some help optimizing your setup. Unless you are dealing with terabytes it should not be difficult to keep things snappy.

[kerams]

Will Seq be able to pull/scrape metrics on its own too or will we also need to deploy an OTel collector in order to functionally replace Prometheus with Seq?

I'm also very curious if any kind of Grafana Prometheus datasource compat is on the table. While I am happy looking at logs and metrics solely in the Seq UI, I'd prefer to keep using existing Prometheus-based Grafana dashboards for metrics. Seq datasource would also work as long as dashboard migration is straightforward.

[nblumhardt]

Hi @kerams, thanks for the input!

As of the 2026.1 release, you'll need an OpenTelemetry Collector if you want to scrape Prometheus endpoints.

We're building the internal infrastructure up-front that will support creation of a Prometheus scraper as a plug-in input, so if the demand is there we'll have a direct path to supporting some level of Prometheus scraping functionality.

A Prometheus-compatible query API is unlikely, but a Seq-specific Grafana plug-in seems feasible. This would also be something we'd need to explore post-2026.1.

Breaking these two out as independent feature requests (Prometheus scraper, and Grafana data source), is probably the way to go at this point.