Lightstep

aid: lightstep
name: Lightstep
description: Lightstep, now ServiceNow Cloud Observability, is a distributed tracing and observability platform that helps
  teams monitor, debug, and optimize microservice performance. It provides deep visibility into distributed systems using
  OpenTelemetry-based tracing, metrics, and service health monitoring.
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  - url: https://lightstep.com
    status: 301
    note: declared website redirects to https://www.servicenow.com/products/observability.html — a different registrable domain
      (lightstep.com -> servicenow.com), possible rename or acquisition (probed 2026-09-03, roadmap#169)
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/lightstep.png
tags:
- APM
- Distributed Tracing
- Microservices
- Monitoring
- Observability
- OpenTelemetry
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/lightstep/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-03-26'
modified: '2026-05-04'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: lightstep:lightstep-api
  name: Lightstep API
  description: The Lightstep API provides programmatic access to observability data including traces, spans, streams, dashboards,
    alerting conditions, and service health. It enables teams to manage their observability configuration and query telemetry
    data programmatically.
  humanURL: https://docs.lightstep.com/docs/lightstep-api-overview
  tags:
  - APM
  - Distributed Tracing
  - Monitoring
  - Observability
  - Telemetry
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.lightstep.com/docs/lightstep-api-overview
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: https://docs.lightstep.com/openapi
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://docs.lightstep.com/docs/welcome-to-lightstep
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://docs.lightstep.com/docs/create-and-manage-api-keys
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/lightstep-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/lightstep-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/lightstep-finops.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/lightstep-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://lightstep.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.lightstep.com
- type: Blog
  url: https://lightstep.com/blog
- type: Pricing
  url: https://lightstep.com/pricing
- type: Login
  url: https://app.lightstep.com
- type: Signup
  url: https://app.lightstep.com/signup
- type: Support
  url: https://lightstep.com/support
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/lightstep
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightstep
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.lightstep.com
- type: OpenTelemetry
  url: https://docs.lightstep.com/docs/opentelemetry
- type: Features
  data:
  - Now ServiceNow Cloud Observability after acquisition
  - Community free for evaluation
  - 'Enterprise: custom pricing through ServiceNow'
  - Distributed tracing with intelligent sampling
  - Service maps (Enterprise)
  - Anomaly detection with notebooks
  - OpenTelemetry-native
  - Public API at api.lightstep.com
  - Default 600 req/min/org
  - Span ingest scales with plan
  - Streams (saved span queries)
  - Notebooks for collaborative root-cause analysis
  - ServiceNow ITSM integration (Enterprise)
  - API tokens per project
  - Webhooks for streams and conditions
  - AWS, GCP, Azure cloud support
  sources:
  - https://lightstep.com/
  - https://www.servicenow.com/products/observability.html
  updated: '2026-05-04'
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com