opentelemetry-instrumentation-urllib3
OpenTelemetry urllib3 instrumentation
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you are already using OpenTelemetry and urllib3 in the same application. The low install friction, active maintenance, permissive license, and zero known vulnerabilities make it a safe choice. The beta version status is typical for OpenTelemetry instrumentation packages and does not indicate instability. Install it to gain automatic HTTP tracing without code changes.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.10 or later; requires an active OpenTelemetry tracer/exporter to be configured separately to actually export traces.
- Low friction install with five stable runtime dependencies.
- Actively maintained as of 2026-08-13 with recent release activity.
License · maintenance · safety
Apache-2.0 (permissive) — Apache-2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; suitable for most production environments.
last release 2026-07-16 (29 days) · last repo commit 2026-08-13 · 1,086 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 49,653,715 downloads/mo, #579 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install opentelemetry-instrumentation-urllib3
import urllib3
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.urllib3 import URLLib3Instrumentor
URLLib3Instrumentor().instrument()
http = urllib3.PoolManager()
response = http.request("GET", "https://www.example.org/")- Whether the package works with urllib3 versions prior to a specific release or has known compatibility gaps.
- Performance overhead of instrumentation on high-throughput HTTP clients.
- Whether request/response hooks support async urllib3 operations.
What it is and what it does
This package automatically instruments urllib3 HTTP client calls to emit OpenTelemetry spans, making HTTP traffic visible in distributed tracing systems. It wraps urllib3's request/response cycle to capture timing, status codes, and other HTTP metadata without requiring changes to application code that uses urllib3.
The instrumentation is configured by calling URLLib3Instrumentor().instrument() once at startup, optionally with URL filtering to redact sensitive query parameters, request/response hooks for custom span enrichment, or exclude-list patterns to skip tracing certain URLs. It depends on opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-instrumentation, opentelemetry-semantic-conventions, opentelemetry-util-http, and wrapt to hook into urllib3's internals.
Use it for
- Trace HTTP calls in microservices to correlate requests across service boundaries in a distributed system.
- Debug slow or failing HTTP requests by examining span timings and response metadata in a tracing backend.
- Redact sensitive query parameters from traced URLs using url_filter to comply with privacy requirements.
- Enrich HTTP spans with custom attributes via request/response hooks for business logic or security context.
- Monitor health-check or internal API calls separately by excluding them from tracing with OTEL_PYTHON_URLLIB3_EXCLUDED_URLS.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you are already using OpenTelemetry and urllib3 in the same application.
The low install friction, active maintenance, permissive license, and zero known vulnerabilities make it a safe choice. The beta version status is typical for OpenTelemetry instrumentation packages and does not indicate instability. Install it to gain automatic HTTP tracing without code changes.
Install
opentelemetry-instrumentation-urllib3 on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction install with five stable runtime dependencies. Actively maintained as of 2026-08-13 with recent release activity. Beta status (0.65b0) indicates ongoing development but no known vulnerabilities.
Requires Python 3.10 or later; requires an active OpenTelemetry tracer/exporter to be configured separately to actually export traces.
License in practice
Apache-2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; suitable for most production environments.
Quickstart
pip install opentelemetry-instrumentation-urllib3
import urllib3
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.urllib3 import URLLib3Instrumentor
URLLib3Instrumentor().instrument()
http = urllib3.PoolManager()
response = http.request("GET", "https://www.example.org/")Verify before relying
- Whether the package works with urllib3 versions prior to a specific release or has known compatibility gaps.
- Performance overhead of instrumentation on high-throughput HTTP clients.
- Whether request/response hooks support async urllib3 operations.
Package facts
| License | Apache-2.0 permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.10 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 5 packagesopentelemetry-apiopentelemetry-instrumentationopentelemetry-semantic-conventionsopentelemetry-util-httpwrapt |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 29 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 49,653,715 / month, #579 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 4 - BetaIntended Audience :: DevelopersLicense :: OSI Approved :: Apache Software LicenseProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14 |
Evidence: opentelemetry_instrumentation_urllib3-0.65b0-py3-none-any.whl
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See also opentelemetry-instrumentation-urllib · opentelemetry-instrumentation-httpx · opentelemetry-instrumentation-requests · opentelemetry-instrumentation-django · opentelemetry-instrumentation-falcon · opentelemetry-instrumentation-aiohttp-client · opentelemetry-instrumentation-fastapi · opentelemetry-instrumentation-flask · opentelemetry-instrumentation-sklearn · opentelemetry-instrumentation-wsgi