Cloud vs Self-Hosted Ingestion

Most ingestion steps are identical for SigNoz Cloud and self-hosted SigNoz. The main differences are endpoint, authentication, and TLS. Use this page when a doc only shows one environment and you want to adapt it to the other.

Quick Differences

• Endpoint
  • Cloud: https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443 (single port for OTLP/HTTP and OTLP/gRPC)
  • Self-Host: http(s)://<signoz-host>:4317 (gRPC) or http(s)://<signoz-host>:4318 (HTTP)
• Authentication
  • Cloud: Add header signoz-ingestion-key: <key> (or basic auth)
  • Self-Host: No ingestion key; add auth/TLS at your proxy/ingress if you need it
• TLS
  • Cloud: Always TLS on 443
  • Self-Host: Plain HTTP by default; enable TLS via ingress/reverse proxy for production
• Paths (OTLP/HTTP)
  • Both: SDKs/collectors append /v1/{traces|metrics|logs} automatically
• CORS
  • Cloud: Enabled on all endpoints
  • Self-Host: Enable CORS explicitly on the OTLP HTTP receiver if needed

Cloud to Self-Hosted

Using a guide that only shows SigNoz Cloud steps? Apply the following minimal changes to send data to self-hosted SigNoz:

Language SDKs

- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=signoz-ingestion-key=<KEY>
+ OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://<signoz-host>:4317   # or :4318 for HTTP
+ OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true                       # set to false when using TLS
+ # No ingestion key header needed

Notes:

• If you enable TLS for self-hosted (via ingress/reverse proxy), use https://<host>:443 and set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=false (or omit it) and trust the certificates as needed.
• OTLP/HTTP appends /v1/{traces|metrics|logs} automatically when you use the signal-agnostic endpoint variable OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT.

OpenTelemetry Collector (gateway/agent)

 exporters:
-  otlphttp:
-    endpoint: https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443
-    headers:
-      signoz-ingestion-key: <KEY>
+  otlp:                       # gRPC (use otlphttp on :4318 if you prefer HTTP)
+    endpoint: <signoz-host>:4317
+    tls:
+      insecure: true         # set to false when you enable TLS/HTTPS

If you switch to HTTPS on self-hosted, change the endpoint to https://<host>:443, remove tls.insecure: true, and add a tls block only if you need to trust custom CAs.

Self-Hosted to Cloud

Using a guide that only shows Self-Hosted steps? Apply the following minimal changes to send data to SigNoz Cloud:

Language SDKs

- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://<signoz-host>:4317   # or :4318 for HTTP
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true                       # when not using TLS
+ OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443
+ OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=signoz-ingestion-key=<KEY>
+ # Keep your protocol (grpc or http/protobuf); both work on 443
+ # Remove OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE if previously set

Notes:

• Keep your current protocol; Cloud supports both OTLP/gRPC and OTLP/HTTP on 443.

OpenTelemetry Collector (gateway/agent)

 exporters:
-  otlp:                       # gRPC to self-hosted
-    endpoint: '<signoz-host>:4317'
-    tls:
-      insecure: true
+  otlphttp:
+    endpoint: https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443
+    headers:
+      signoz-ingestion-key: <KEY>

Alternative (gRPC): you can also keep otlp and set endpoint: ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443 with headers: { signoz-ingestion-key: <KEY> } and no tls.insecure.

References

• Self-Hosted Ingestion Overview
• SigNoz Cloud Ingestion Overview
• OpenTelemetry Collector configuration