Migrate Data from Honeycomb to SigNoz

This guide explains how to migrate observability data from Honeycomb to SigNoz by updating your OpenTelemetry configuration.

Prerequisites

Active SigNoz Cloud account or self-hosted SigNoz instance.
Access to your application's OpenTelemetry configuration.

Legacy SDK Migration

If you are using Honeycomb's legacy SDKs (Beelines or Honeycomb Distributions), you must first migrate to OpenTelemetry:

Once you have switched to OpenTelemetry, proceed with the configuration below.

OpenTelemetry Configuration

Since both Honeycomb and SigNoz use OpenTelemetry, migrating involves pointing your OTLP endpoint to SigNoz.

Step 1: Obtain Connection Details

Log into your SigNoz Cloud account.
Navigate to Settings → Ingestion Settings.
Note your Ingestion Key and Ingestion URL.

Step 2: Update OpenTelemetry Configuration

Set the following environment variables for your application:

# Replace with your SigNoz cloud region
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443"

# Replace with your SigNoz ingestion key
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="signoz-ingestion-key=SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY"

If you are using an OpenTelemetry Collector, update your exporter configuration:

exporters:
  otlp:
    endpoint: "https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443"
    headers:
      signoz-ingestion-key: "SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY"
    tls:
      insecure: false

Replace the following placeholders:

<region>: Your SigNoz Cloud region (e.g., us, eu, in).
SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY: Your SigNoz Ingestion Key.

Step 3: Verify Data

Check the SigNoz dashboard to ensure traces/APM, logs, and metrics are arriving.

Configure Signal Correlation

SigNoz automatically correlates logs with traces when they share trace_id and span_id.

Automatic: Use OpenTelemetry SDKs that inject trace context into logs.
Manual: Ensure your logging libraries include trace_id and span_id fields.

Configure Additional Metrics

You may need to configure additional metrics sources if they were handled differently in Honeycomb.

Enable Prometheus Receiver

To scrape existing Prometheus endpoints, enable the Prometheus receiver in your SigNoz Collector.

See the Prometheus Metrics guide for full details.

Troubleshooting

401/403 errors when exporting: Verify signoz-ingestion-key header value and that the key is active in SigNoz Cloud settings.
TLS or connection errors: Ensure the endpoint uses https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443 and that tls.insecure remains false.
Metrics or logs missing but traces present: Confirm all three pipelines include the SigNoz exporter and that services emit those signals. Check collector logs for dropped data.
High latency or backpressure: Add the batch processor and enable retry queue in the exporter to prevent data loss under load.