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Google Cloud Trace

cloud.google.com

From $0.20/mo WebLinuxAPI
Visit cloud.google.com
Spec score 7.8 #14 of 32 in Distributed Tracing Tools

Spec sheet

Purpose
Cloud Trace collects latency data to help troubleshoot performance bottlenecks across services and generative AI applications.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Integrations
Cloud Logging entries can be associated with traces and spans, and displayed alongside trace waterfall graphs or in Logs Explorer.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
API quota
The Cloud Trace API has a daily span-ingestion quota of 3,000,000 to 5,000,000,000 spans, based on billing history and quota increase requests; this quota does not apply to Telemetry API ingestion.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Automatic tracing
App Engine standard, Cloud Run functions, and Cloud Run automatically capture some trace data.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
BigQuery
A linked BigQuery dataset enables joining trace data with other BigQuery datasets and querying it from BigQuery Studio or Data Studio.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Company history
Google Inc. was officially born in August 1998, and Google identifies its current headquarters as the Googleplex in Mountain View, California.Read 9 Oct 2026 · about.google
Data residency caveat
Google says not to use the Cloud Trace API to send trace spans when using Assured Workloads for data-residency or IL4 requirements.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Instrumentation
Google recommends OpenTelemetry, with Go, Java, Node.js, and Python instrumentation samples.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Latency analysis
Trace Explorer displays aggregate latency on a heatmap and lets users filter data and inspect individual traces and spans.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Retention
Spans stored in the _Trace bucket are retained for 30 days.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Security controls
Cloud Trace supports VPC Service Controls and uses Identity and Access Management to control access to resources.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
SQL analytics
Observability Analytics provides a SQL interface for querying trace data and joining it with log data.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com
Supported environments
Trace runs on Linux in Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Apigee (Public Preview), App Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Service Mesh, Cloud SQL query insights, and non-Google Cloud environments.Read 9 Oct 2026 · docs.cloud.google.com

Plans and prices

Cloud Trace usage-based pricing $0.20 a month Monthly; first 2.5 million spans per billing account are free First 2.5 million spans per billing account/month free · Auto-generated spans from App Engine Standard, Cloud Run functions, and Cloud Run are non-chargeable Read 9 Oct 2026 · cloud.google.com

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