Collect application data

Use Elastic APM agents or an OpenTelemetry language SDK to instrument a service in the language its written in:

Elastic APM agents: Elastic APM agents are instrumentation libraries written in the same language as your service.
OpenTelemetry: OpenTelemetry is an open source set of APIs, SDKs, tooling, and integrations that enable the capture and management of telemetry data from your services and applications.
- This option includes Elastic Distributions of OpenTelemetry, which are customized versions of OpenTelemetry language SDKs that are optimized to work with an Elastic backend.

Not sure which method is right for you? Compare the available options below.

	Elastic APM agent	Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry
Support level	Fully supported	Mixed support Refer to the availability table
Data protocol	Elastic protocol	OpenTelemetry protocol (OTLP)
Central configuration	Supported Refer to APM agent central configuration	Not supported

Language	Elastic APM agent	Elastic Distributions of OpenTelemetry (EDOT)
Android	Android agent
Go	Go agent
iOS	iOS agent
Java	Java agent	EDOT Java
.NET	.NET agent	[preview] This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. EDOT .NET
Node.js	Node.js agent	[preview] This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. EDOT Node.js
PHP	PHP agent	[preview] This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. EDOT PHP
Python	Python agent	[preview] This functionality is in technical preview and may be changed or removed in a future release. Elastic will work to fix any issues, but features in technical preview are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features. EDOT Python
Ruby	Ruby agent

Elastic also offers several tools to help you collect data from specific services:

Kubernetes: The Elastic APM attacher for Kubernetes simplifies the instrumentation and configuration of your application pods. Read more in the APM attacher for Kubernetes docs.
AWS Lambda Functions: Helps you monitor your AWS Lambda functions. Read more in the APM Architecture for AWS Lambda docs.
[8.15.0] Deprecated in 8.15.0. Jaeger: Helps you to switch an existing Jaeger setup from the default Jaeger backend to the Elastic Stack. Read more in Integrate with Jaeger.