---
title: OTLP/HTTP endpoint
description: In addition to the ingestion of metrics data through the bulk API, Elasticsearch offers an alternative way to ingest data through the OpenTelemetry Protocol...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/manage-data/data-store/data-streams/tsds-ingest-otlp
products:
  - Elasticsearch
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes: Generally available
  - Elastic Cloud Enterprise: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# OTLP/HTTP endpoint
In addition to the ingestion of metrics data through the bulk API,
Elasticsearch offers an alternative way to ingest data through the [OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP)](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp).
The endpoint is available under `/_otlp/v1/metrics`.

## Prerequisites

An Elasticsearch cluster running Elastic Stack 9.2 or later. The OTLP endpoint is available on ECE, ECK, and self-managed deployments that run this stack version.

## Overview and deployment options

<important>
  The recommended approach for sending OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) data depends on your deployment:
  - **ECH and Serverless:** Use the [Elastic Cloud Managed OTLP Endpoint](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/opentelemetry/motlp) directly.
  - **ECE, ECK, and self-managed:** Use the Elasticsearch OTLP endpoint described on this page, ideally through an OpenTelemetry Collector in [Gateway mode](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/edot-collector/config/default-config-standalone#gateway-mode).
  For details on the recommended way to set up OpenTelemetry-based data ingestion, refer to the [EDOT reference architecture](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/opentelemetry/architecture).
</important>

Ingesting metrics data using the OTLP endpoint has the following advantages:
- Improved ingestion performance, especially if the data contains many resource attributes.
- Simplified index mapping:
  there's no need to manually create data streams, index templates, or define dimensions and metrics.
  Metrics are dynamically mapped using the metadata included in the OTLP requests.

<note>
  Elasticsearch only supports [OTLP/HTTP](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp/#otlphttp),
  not [OTLP/gRPC](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp/#otlpgrpc).
</note>

Don't send metrics from applications directly to the Elasticsearch OTLP endpoint, especially if there are many individual applications that periodically send a small amount of metrics. Instead, send data to an OpenTelemetry Collector first. This helps with handling many connections, and with creating bigger batches to improve ingestion performance.

## How to send data to the OTLP endpoint

To send data from an OpenTelemetry Collector to the Elasticsearch OTLP endpoint,
use the [`OTLP/HTTP` exporter](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/exporter/otlphttpexporter).
This is an example configuration:
```yaml
extensions:
  basicauth/elasticsearch:
    client_auth:
      username: <user>
      password: <password>
exporters:
  otlphttp/elasticsearch-metrics:
    endpoint: <es_endpoint>/_otlp
    sending_queue:
      enabled: true
      sizer: bytes
      queue_size: 50_000_000
      block_on_overflow: true
      batch:
        flush_timeout: 1s
        min_size: 1_000_000
        max_size: 4_000_000
    auth:
      authenticator: basicauth/elasticsearch
service:
  extensions: [basicauth/elasticsearch]
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      exporters: [otlphttp/elasticsearch-metrics]
      receivers: ...
```

The supported options for `compression` are `gzip` (default value of the `OTLP/HTTP` exporter) and `none`.
To track metrics in your custom application,
use the [OpenTelemetry language SDK](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/getting-started/dev/) of your choice.
<note>
  Only `encoding: proto` is supported, which the `OTLP/HTTP` exporter uses by default.
</note>


## Send data to different data streams

By default, metrics are ingested into the `metrics-generic.otel-default` data stream. You can influence the target data stream by setting specific attributes on your data:
- `data_stream.dataset` or `data_stream.namespace` in attributes, with the following order of precedence: data point attribute -> scope attribute -> resource attribute
- Otherwise, if the scope name contains `/receiver/<somereceiver>`, `data_stream.dataset` is set to the receiver name.
- Otherwise, `data_stream.dataset` falls back to `generic` and `data_stream.namespace` falls back to `default`.

The target data stream name is constructed as `metrics-${data_stream.dataset}.otel-${data_stream.namespace}`.

## Configure histogram handling

<applies-to>
  - Elastic Stack: Preview since 9.3
</applies-to>

You can configure how OTLP histograms are mapped using the `xpack.otel_data.histogram_field_type` cluster setting. Valid values are:
- `histogram` (default): Map histograms as T-Digests using the `histogram` field type
- `exponential_histogram`: Map histograms as exponential histograms using the `exponential_histogram` field type

The setting is dynamic and can be updated at runtime:
```json

{
  "persistent" : {
    "xpack.otel_data.histogram_field_type" : "exponential_histogram"
  }
}
```

Because both `histogram` and `exponential_histogram` support [coerce](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/elasticsearch/mapping-reference/coerce), changing this setting dynamically does not risk mapping conflicts or ingestion failures.
This setting only applies to metrics ingested using the [Elasticsearch OTLP endpoint](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/manage-data/data-store/data-streams/tsds-ingest-otlp).
Documents ingested with the _bulk API (for example using the Elasticsearch exporter for the OpenTelemetry Collector) are not affected.

## Limitations

- Only the OTLP metrics endpoint (`/_otlp/v1/metrics`) is supported.
  To ingest logs, traces, and profiles, use a distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector that includes the [Elasticsearch exporter](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/edot-collector/components/elasticsearchexporter),
  such as the [Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry (EDOT) Collector](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3028/reference/edot-collector).
- Histograms are only supported in delta temporality. Set the temporality preference to delta in your SDKs, or use the [`cumulativetodelta` processor](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/cumulativetodeltaprocessor) to avoid cumulative histograms to be dropped.
- Exemplars are not supported.