You can ship Kong Gateway telemetry to SigNoz in two ways: the SigNoz-built kong-plugin-signoz plugin, or Kong's bundled OpenTelemetry plugin. Pick based on the trade-offs below.
For step-by-step setup, see SigNoz Plugin or OpenTelemetry Plugin.
Quick Decision Guide
| Your Situation | Recommended Approach | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Want traces and structured logs with minimal config | SigNoz Plugin | Single plugin, SigNoz-tuned defaults, per-request log records |
| Need metrics (Enterprise 3.13+) | Native OpenTelemetry | Only the native plugin exports Kong metrics |
| Want zero install dependencies | Native OpenTelemetry | Bundled with Kong, no LuaRocks step |
| Prefer Kong's officially maintained plugin | Native OpenTelemetry | Bundled and maintained by Kong |
| Running Kong 3.0 to 3.5 | Native OpenTelemetry | The SigNoz plugin needs Kong 3.6+ |
Approach 1: SigNoz Plugin
The kong-plugin-signoz plugin ships traces and logs to SigNoz. It delegates trace export to Kong's bundled OpenTelemetry plugin and runs its own OTLP/HTTP pipeline for logs.
┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ Kong Gateway │ traces + logs (OTLP) │ SigNoz │
│ (kong-plugin- │ ───────────────────▶ │ │
│ signoz) │ │ │
└─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
Benefits:
- ✅ Traces and structured logs from a single plugin
- ✅ One OTLP log record per request, body shaped
"<METHOD> <path> <status> <duration>ms", severity by status class, correlated to the request trace - ✅ Enriches Kong's root span with
kong.service.nameandkong.route.name - ✅ SigNoz-tuned exporter defaults (endpoint, ingestion key, queue)
Trade-offs:
- ❌ No metrics
- ❌ Requires a LuaRocks install on every Kong node (Kong 3.6 to 3.8 need a direct rockspec URL)
- ❌ Kong 3.6+ only
Approach 2: Native OpenTelemetry Plugin
Kong's bundled OpenTelemetry plugin exports traces, logs, and metrics directly to SigNoz over OTLP. No extra install.
┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ Kong Gateway │ traces+logs+metrics │ SigNoz │
│ (bundled otel │ ───────────────────▶ │ │
│ plugin) │ (OTLP) │ │
└─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
Benefits:
- ✅ No install — bundled with Kong
- ✅ Exports metrics (Kong Enterprise 3.13+)
- ✅ Uses Kong's standard OpenTelemetry plugin
Trade-offs:
- ❌ Traces, logs, and metrics each need separate configuration
- ❌ Logs require Kong 3.8+; metrics require Enterprise 3.13+ (OSS 3.9.x predates metrics)
- ❌ No SigNoz-specific span enrichment or log shaping
Recommendation
For most setups, we recommend the SigNoz Plugin. It ships traces and ready-made structured logs from a single plugin, enriches Kong's spans with service and route names, and comes with SigNoz-tuned exporter defaults.
Choose the Native OpenTelemetry Plugin if you need metrics (Enterprise 3.13+) or want to avoid the LuaRocks install.
Get Help
If you need help with the steps in this topic, please reach out to us on SigNoz Community Slack.
If you are a SigNoz Cloud user, please use in product chat support located at the bottom right corner of your SigNoz instance or contact us at cloud-support@signoz.io.