Introduction
OpenWatchIt is an open-source observability gateway. It lets you query logs, metrics, traces, and profiles across any combination of vendors using a single unified command-line tool.
The problem
Section titled “The problem”Modern engineering teams accumulate observability tools organically. Logs in Loki. Metrics in Prometheus. Traces in DataDog. Each tool has its own query language, its own UI, and its own mental model.
During an incident, this means:
- Opening four browser tabs
- Remembering four query syntaxes
- Manually copying trace IDs between tools
- Writing one-off scripts to correlate data
The tools are individually excellent. The seams between them are the problem.
The solution
Section titled “The solution”OpenWatchIt sits in front of your existing tools. You write one query; it dispatches to every configured backend in parallel, translates to each vendor’s native language, and returns a single normalised result.
owit logs level=error service=payments --last 1h --limit 50That single command hits Loki, DataDog, and CloudWatch simultaneously — one result, sorted by timestamp, with a _source column showing where each row came from.
What OpenWatchIt is not
Section titled “What OpenWatchIt is not”- Not a storage backend. Your data stays where it is.
- Not a replacement for your current tools. It’s a layer on top.
- Not a paid SaaS. MIT-licensed. Run it anywhere.