# Grafana Tempo

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Grafana Tempo and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source trace database that people recommend for debugging faster than sifting through logs, especially self-hosted with Grafana. One critic finds it heavy to run.

## Why people recommend it

- Open-source database designed for traces (1 comments): "open-source databases specially designed for traces, such as Grafana Tempo or VictoriaTraces" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46355565))
- Saves debugging time versus sifting logs (1 comments): "the money saved in developer time when debugging an error, compared to having to sift through and connect logs, is easily an order of magnitude higher" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46349326))
- Works well self-hosted with Grafana (2 comments): "even if you can go a loooong way with a self-hosted Grafana + Tempo" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47542069)) "OSS LGTM/P works good for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49401802))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Grafana](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grafana.md): 71 recommend
- [Prometheus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/prometheus.md): 48 recommend
- [Datadog](https://hackerapproved.com/p/datadog.md): 40 recommend
- [Sentry](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sentry.md): 31 recommend
- [SigNoz](https://hackerapproved.com/p/signoz.md): 19 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Grafana Tempo", https://hackerapproved.com/p/tempo/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).