AWS Observability vs OpenTelemetry

observability After using AWS-native observability (CloudWatch/X-Ray) as my default choice for nearly a decade, I recently implemented an open-source observability stack for a greenfield project. Here's what I learned about when to use each approach. Why I Explored OpenTelemetry For the past 9 years, every AWS project I worked on used CloudWatch and X-Ray. It was automatic — spin up services, observability comes built-in. No complaints. Then came a project with a twist: the application needed to