On March 19, 2026, the OpenTelemetry Specification project merged PR #4938, deprecating OpenTracing compatibility requirements in the specification.
This change updates the specification to match where the ecosystem already is: OpenTracing has been archived for years, and new integrations are expected to use native OpenTelemetry APIs and SDKs instead of building on OpenTracing shim requirements.
This is a deprecation of specification requirements, not an immediate removal of compatibility material and not a requirement to remove existing shim artifacts right away.

OpenTelemetry's platform is an observability framework, offering insights into distributed tracing, metrics collection, and log management for cloud-native applications. Through documentation, tutorials, and community contributions, OpenTelemetry provides insights into instrumenting applications to monitor performance and troubleshoot issues. Developers and DevOps teams can learn about distributed tracing standards, telemetry data formats, and integration with observability tools to gain visibility into complex distributed systems.

OpenTelemetry

The OpenTelemetry Specification project has deprecated OpenTracing compatibility requirements, effective March 2026, via PR #4938. This means new SDKs and implementations are no longer required to implement OpenTracing compatibility. Existing shims can remain for backwards compatibility during the deprecation period, but new work should target native OpenTelemetry APIs and OTLP-based workflows. Earliest removal from the spec is no earlier than March 2027. Users still depending on OpenTracing shims should begin planning migration to native OpenTelemetry APIs.

Deprecating OpenTracing compatibility requirements