Article Series

OpenTelemetry NextJS Tutorial

Complete guide to implementing OpenTelemetry in Next.js applications

5 Articles

30 Learning Outcomes

Beginner to Advanced

OpenTelemetry NextJS Tutorial Hero Image

Articles in this Series

5 articles • Start with Part 1 and progress sequentially

This comprehensive series transforms your Next.js application from a black box into a fully observable system using OpenTelemetry and SigNoz. Starting with basic instrumentation, you'll progress through real-world monitoring scenarios to production-ready observability.

Learn to track everything that matters: server-side traces and API performance, client-side Web Vitals and widget impact, structured logging with trace correlation, exception monitoring, and external API dependencies. You'll also master production concerns like sampling strategies, data sanitization, alerting, and scaling—whether deploying on Vercel or self-hosted infrastructure.

By the end, you'll have unified observability across your entire Next.js stack, from browser performance to backend bottlenecks, all visualized in SigNoz dashboards with actionable alerts.

What You'll Learn

Master OpenTelemetry observability in Next.js with these comprehensive learning outcomes

Part 1

Monitor NextJS with OpenTelemetry - Traces, Metrics, and Logs

Set up OpenTelemetry instrumentation in Next.js with @vercel/otel

Configure automatic tracing for API routes, SSR, and fetch requests

Deploy and run an OpenTelemetry Collector locally with Docker

Export traces to both Jaeger and SigNoz for visualization

Understand default Next.js spans and trace analysis

Debug instrumentation issues and optimize trace collection

Part 2

NextJS OpenTelemetry Use Cases - Monitoring 404s, External APIs, Exceptions & More

Build custom queries in SigNoz to track 404 errors and route issues

Monitor third-party API performance and external dependencies

Implement exception monitoring with proper span error recording

Create dashboards for business metrics and user journey tracking

Set up database query monitoring and slow query detection

Track cache hit/miss ratios and background job performance

Part 3

Tracking Web Vitals & Widget Performance in Next.js with OpenTelemetry

Instrument browser-side OpenTelemetry for frontend monitoring

Capture Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) with real user data

Track third-party widget loading performance and impact

Export browser metrics to SigNoz via OTLP HTTP

Create Web Vitals dashboards for performance monitoring

Correlate frontend performance with backend traces

Part 4

Structured Logging in NextJS with OpenTelemetry

Set up structured logging with OpenTelemetry logs SDK

Implement server-side logging with automatic trace correlation

Build browser logger that exports to server via API routes

Correlate logs with traces using traceId and spanId

Create unified logging across client and server environments

Visualize correlated logs and traces in SigNoz dashboards

Part 5

Deploying and Scaling OpenTelemetry in Production NextJS Apps

Deploy instrumented Next.js apps to Vercel and self-hosted infrastructure

Choose between OpenTelemetry Collector vs direct exporter architectures

Implement production-grade alerting for latency, errors, and external APIs

Configure sampling strategies to optimize performance and costs

Sanitize sensitive data and implement security best practices

Handle cold starts, performance overhead, and scaling considerations

Ready to Start Learning?

Begin your journey to mastering OpenTelemetry observability in Next.js applications

Start with Part 1 Get Started with SigNoz - Free