Collect OpenTelemetry (OTel) for Application Insights experiences

This article covers getting started with Application Insights data collection.

Entry points include:

  • Server-side web apps
  • Server-side web apps hosted on a Virtual Machine (VM)
  • Client-side JavaScript apps
  • Azure Functions
  • AI Agents

Getting started

Choose the tab that best matches your workload or hosting model.

Most server-side scenarios in this article use Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry.

Use this path for server-side web apps that you instrument in code.

  1. Create an Application Insights resource.
  2. Get the resource's connection string.
  3. Add the OpenTelemetry Distro to your app.
  4. Configure the connection string.

Tip

Some platforms enable data collection automatically through autoinstrumentation. Switch to code-based instrumentation with the OpenTelemetry Distro if you want more configuration and extensibility options.

After you complete the setup for your scenario, run your app and wait a few minutes for telemetry to appear in Application Insights. Then explore Application Insights experiences.

Next steps

Review the following resources to get more familiar with Application Insights concepts.