API overview

This page provides a brief overview of the Observability API and the Telemetry (OTLP) API.

About the Observability API

The Observability API lets you configure the observability scope for your project. This scope controls which resources are searched by the explorer pages for log, metric, and trace data. For more information, see Observability scopes overview.

About the Telemetry API

The Telemetry (OTLP) API lets you send OTLP-formatted trace data to your project. This API provides compatibility and support for the open source OpenTelemetry ecosystem. Also, the limits for theTelemetry API are often more generous than for the Cloud Trace API. For more information, see the following documents: