Jaeger

v2.18.0Observability

May 14, 2026Copy link

Jaeger v2.18.0 brings two breaking changes (OTEL metrics overhaul and removed min-step API), useful header-forwarding for ES/OpenSearch, and a massive UI refactor migrating state management from Redux to Zustand.

• breakingAudit your metrics dashboards before upgrading

  The OTEL collector package upgrade changed metric names and shapes. Before upgrading, compare your current Jaeger metrics against the new ones by running both versions in parallel or checking the PR diff. Any Grafana dashboards, Prometheus alerts, or monitoring rules built on Jaeger's internal metrics need to be reviewed and updated. The min_step removal is a smaller blast radius — only affects custom tooling that calls the metricstore API directly — but still requires a code or config change before upgrading.

• enhancementUse header forwarding if you authenticate ES/OpenSearch with custom headers

  If your Elasticsearch or OpenSearch cluster requires auth headers beyond basic username/password (e.g., custom JWT, IAM proxy headers), configure the new header-forwarding feature. This also helps in multi-tenant setups where storage routing depends on request headers. Configure via the storage backend settings in jaeger-query or the gRPC storage plugin config.

• enhancementEvaluate ClickHouse as a storage backend if you want SPM without Prometheus

  ClickHouse SPM support is experimental but now covers the full metrics trifecta: call rates, error rates, and latencies. TTL support is also added. If you're running ClickHouse already or want a single-store solution for both traces and metrics, this is the release to start testing against. Don't use it in production yet, but set up a staging environment to track maturity.