HyperDX
Developer-first observability platform: end-to-end search across logs, traces, and session replays.
Why consider HyperDX?
HyperDX is an open-source observability platform designed for developers. It indexes logs, OpenTelemetry traces, and session replays with Lucene search syntax into ClickHouse.
Learn HyperDX by building
Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.
In this guide11 sections
What is HyperDX?
HyperDX is an open-source, developer-friendly observability platform that unifies structured logs, OpenTelemetry distributed traces, and browser session replays into a single search experience. Developed with TypeScript, Node.js, and ClickHouse, HyperDX operates as a developer-centric alternative to complex and expensive monitoring platforms like Datadog, Sumo Logic, and Loggly.
HyperDX emphasizes intuitive search: using familiar Lucene-style search syntax (e.g. level:error AND service:api), developers can pinpoint bugs across millions of log records, jump directly to corresponding trace spans, and watch the exact user session recording that caused the error.
Who Is It For?
- Software Engineers & Developers: Searching across distributed server logs and microservice traces with sub-second query latency.
- DevOps & Infrastructure Teams: Deploying a single OpenTelemetry-compatible observability collector with ClickHouse storage on private infrastructure.
- Startups: Replacing disparate logging, tracing, and session recording tools with a unified self-hosted stack.
Key Features
- Unified search canvas: Query logs, traces, and session replays using intuitive Lucene search syntax.
- OpenTelemetry native: Ingest telemetry directly from standard OTel SDKs and collectors via OTLP (gRPC / HTTP).
- Blazing-fast ClickHouse backend: Execute aggregations, pattern searches, and time-series rollups over petabytes of data.
- User session replay integration: Correlate backend log errors with frontend browser DOM replay videos.
- Dynamic alerts and dashboards: Configure threshold and anomaly alerts with Slack and Webhook notifications.
Deploying HyperDX with Docker Compose
# 1. Clone the official HyperDX repositorygit clone https://github.com/hyperdxio/hyperdx.gitcd hyperdx# 2. Start the self-hosted stack (ClickHouse, HyperDX API, Ingest server, and UI)docker compose up -dAccess the HyperDX web interface at http://localhost:8080 and follow the initial onboarding flow to generate your ingestion API keys.
Ingesting Logs via OpenTelemetry
Configure your application to export logs and traces to HyperDX's OTLP endpoint:
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4318"export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="authorization=YOUR_HYPERDX_API_KEY"export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="order-service"Practical Use Cases
1. Cross-Microservice Error Tracing
A distributed architecture processes an asynchronous background payment; HyperDX correlates log outputs from the checkout API, worker queue, and payment microservice under a single trace ID.
2. Instant Regex and Full-Text Log Filtering
An engineer queries status_code:>=500 AND message:/timeout/ across 100 million lines of Nginx access logs, receiving visual histogram distributions in seconds.
3. Correlated Browser-to-Server Bug Diagnostics
A user reports an unexpected failure during file upload; HyperDX pulls up the exact browser DOM replay alongside the Node.js backend exception log.
Troubleshooting and Limitations
- ClickHouse Disk Space Management: Ensure adequate NVMe/SSD storage allocation for ClickHouse data tables, and configure TTL data retention policies under HyperDX configuration.
- OTLP Header Verification: When forwarding telemetry from distributed servers, ensure the
authorizationheader contains your valid HyperDX API key.
Official Resources
- Official Website: https://hyperdx.io
- GitHub Repository: https://github.com/hyperdxio/hyperdx
- Documentation: https://hyperdx.io/docs
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