Introducing OllyGarden Tulip: Our Open-Source Distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector
TL;DR: We're launching OllyGarden Tulip, a commercially supported OpenTelemetry Collector distribution with stable releases, predictable upgrade paths, and professional support from the people who helped build the Collector. It's open source and free to use, with optional commercial support for production deployments. Quarterly releases start with v25.11, with LTS releases every 18 months.
Back in 2019, I encountered something that would shape the next six years of my career: the OpenCensus Service. This unassuming piece of infrastructure could receive telemetry data in one format (OpenCensus, Zipkin) and export it in another, like Jaeger. Simple, elegant, powerful.
When OpenCensus merged with OpenTracing, the service became OpenTelemetry Service. Coming from the Jaeger world, I immediately saw a naming problem: having an "OpenTelemetry Service" that functioned like Jaeger Collector would confuse everyone. In my first SIG calls, I suggested renaming it to OpenTelemetry Collector. The response? "Too much legacy already. People know it by this name."
I was wrong about the timing, but right about the need. Eventually, the community came around, and OpenTelemetry Collector was born.
Helping Build the Collector Ecosystem
That early misstep didn't discourage me. Instead, it pulled me deeper into the community. Over the following years, I implemented authentication support and the first auth mechanism, built the load balancing exporter, created the OpenTelemetry Collector Builder (ocb), developed the OpenTelemetry Operator, and maintained the tail sampling processor. I gave conference talks at events worldwide.
More importantly, I talked to users. Hundreds of conversations about their deployments, their challenges, their workarounds. I addressed concerns where I could, but some problems were too big for a single engineer, even one working at larger organizations.
The Problems I Couldn't Solve Alone
The requests came consistently, almost predictably: "Can we get commercial support for the Collector?"
Some users had backend vendors who offered Collector support, but only as long as they remained customers. Want to migrate to a different backend? Your Collector support disappears. Companies building custom Collector distributions with proprietary components were left entirely on their own.
It was painful. Passionate users consuming my code and projects, and I couldn't offer them the support they needed.
The technical challenges were equally frustrating. Teams stuck on ancient Collector versions because upgrades broke their dashboards and alerts when internal telemetry metrics changed. Organizations forced to update configurations for unrelated components just to consume a critical bug fix. Custom distribution maintainers struggling to keep pace with upstream changes while managing their own components.
These weren't edge cases. These were real operational pain points affecting production systems at scale.
Introducing OllyGarden Tulip
Today, we're changing that. I'm excited to announce OllyGarden Tulip, a commercially supported OpenTelemetry Collector distribution that solves the problems I've heard about for years.
Tulip provides the stability guarantees, predictable release cycles, and professional support that production systems deserve. It's an open source distribution built using ocb, the same tool I created for the community. You can use it freely, extend it, and build on it. And when you need support, we're here with the deep expertise that comes from years of building and maintaining the Collector itself.
This isn't just another distribution. It's the support offering that Collector users have been asking for, delivered by the people who know this codebase intimately.
Why OllyGarden Tulip Exists
When Yuri and I founded OllyGarden at the beginning of this year, our focus was clear: give observability engineers superpowers to understand what's good and what's bad about their telemetry through our Insights platform. That remains our core mission, and we're making significant progress there.
But as we've built OllyGarden, I've kept hearing the same pains from Collector users that I've witnessed for years. These aren't problems we can ignore, and they're problems we can solve right now. So we're accelerating our plans and launching OllyGarden Tulip today, a commercially supported OpenTelemetry Collector distribution built specifically to address the support and stability challenges that production teams face every day.
What Makes Tulip Different
Tulip provides stability guarantees that match real-world needs. Need a critical bug fix without updating every component? We've got you covered. Upgraded to the latest version and experiencing unexpected performance issues? Throw it at us. Want predictable release cycles that align with your planning? We deliver.
Our approach combines flexibility with reliability. We provide quarterly releases tracking upstream versions, starting with v25.11 (November 2025). Every 18 months, we'll release an LTS version, with the first likely at v26.5. The distribution itself is open source, built using ocb. You can use the binaries or container images for free. Need components we don't support yet? Fork our repository and add them. We'll still support the ones in our manifest. Need commercial support? We're here for you.
Built on Open Source, Backed by Experience
OllyGarden Tulip isn't a fork or a proprietary reimagining. It's an open source distribution of the Collector built using the same tools I created, specifically ocb. You can use it freely. You can extend it. You can build on it.
What we're offering is something the community has asked for repeatedly: stable, professional support from people who know this codebase intimately.
I haven't been as involved in the OpenTelemetry Collector community since January. I've been focused on building our products. But Tulip brings us closer again. More importantly, it provides a support offering that our users deserve.
Who This Is For
You should consider OllyGarden Tulip if you run the OpenTelemetry Collector in production and need reliable support, if you build custom Collector distributions and want stable upstream compatibility, if you need predictable upgrade paths that won't break your observability infrastructure, if you want to decouple your Collector support from your backend vendor relationship, or if you value stability and professional support over bleeding-edge features.
Getting Started
OllyGarden Tulip is available now. Our open source manifest and container images are free to use in any environment. For commercial support, contact us to discuss your needs. Visit our documentation site for implementation guides and resources.
We're starting this journey with the v25.11 release, and we're committed to the long-term stability that production systems require.
A Personal Note
For six years, I've watched the OpenTelemetry Collector grow from an experimental service to critical infrastructure powering observability at organizations worldwide. I've celebrated its successes and felt the pain of its operational challenges.
OllyGarden Tulip represents my commitment to the users who've trusted my code over the years. You've built incredible things. You deserve support that matches your ambition.
Let's build something reliable together.
Ready to learn more? Visit our documentation or contact us to discuss commercial support options.