Vector
MPL-2.0 logs/metrics/traces data plane vs OTel Collector/Alloy
Observability / Pipelines · MPL-2.0 · 22.7k
Reviewed 2026-09-07 · last push 2026-10-17 · repo checked 2026-10-19
What's Good
High-performance sources to transforms to sinks for logs, metrics, and traces. Single binary, VRL transforms, broad vendor sinks. Strong alternative to OTel Collector pipelines.
The Catch
MPL-2.0 (file-level copyleft, not MIT/Apache). Datadog-maintained after Timber acquisition - product direction follows Datadog. Distinct from OpenTelemetry Collector and Grafana Alloy.
Verdict
MPL-2.0 obs data plane. Free to run; watch MPL + Datadog stewardship.
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