diff --git a/.github/config/markdown-link-check-config.json b/.github/config/markdown-link-check-config.json
deleted file mode 100644
index a458029d..00000000
--- a/.github/config/markdown-link-check-config.json
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
-{
-  "retryOn429": true,
-  "aliveStatusCodes": [
-    200,
-    403
-  ]
-}
diff --git a/.github/scripts/markdown-link-check-with-retry.sh b/.github/scripts/markdown-link-check-with-retry.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index 9a81e8df..00000000
--- a/.github/scripts/markdown-link-check-with-retry.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash -e
-
-# this script helps to reduce sporadic link check failures by retrying at a file-by-file level
-
-retry_count=3
-
-for file in "$@"; do
-  for i in $(seq 1 $retry_count); do
-    if markdown-link-check --config "$(dirname "$0")/../config/markdown-link-check-config.json" \
-                           "$file"; then
-      break
-    elif [[ $i -eq $retry_count ]]; then
-      exit 1
-    fi
-    sleep 5
-  done
-done
diff --git a/.github/workflows/reusable-markdown-link-check.yml b/.github/workflows/reusable-markdown-link-check.yml
index 950cfeaa..6240250a 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/reusable-markdown-link-check.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/reusable-markdown-link-check.yml
@@ -12,13 +12,11 @@ jobs:
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683 # v4.2.2
 
-      - name: Install markdown-link-check
-        # TODO(jack-berg): use latest when config file reading bug is fixed: https://github.com/tcort/markdown-link-check/issues/246
-        run: npm install -g markdown-link-check@3.10.3
-
-      - name: Run markdown-link-check
-        run: |
-          find . -type f \
-                 -name '*.md' \
-                 -not -path './CHANGELOG.md' \
-               | xargs .github/scripts/markdown-link-check-with-retry.sh
+      - uses: lycheeverse/lychee-action@f613c4a64e50d792e0b31ec34bbcbba12263c6a6 # v2.3.0
+        with:
+          # excluding links to pull requests and issues is done for performance
+          args: >
+            --include-fragments
+            --exclude "^https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-contrib/(issue|pull)/\\d+$"
+            --max-retries 6
+            .