Tempo 3.1 release: new features for Kafka, TraceQL metrics updates, trace redaction, and more

Summary

Grafana Labs released Tempo 3.1, an update to its distributed tracing backend that follows the major Tempo 3.0 release. The version adds community-contributed Kafka client improvements, query-based trace redaction, and sampling-aware TraceQL metrics.

Key facts

• Tempo 3.1 was released by Grafana Labs on 2026-09-30.
• The release builds on the major Tempo 3.0 release.
• It includes community-contributed Kafka client improvements.
• It adds query-based trace redaction and sampling-aware TraceQL metrics.

Why it matters

Teams running Tempo can adopt 3.1 for easier operation and more accurate trace insights, with Kafka and TraceQL changes relevant to how trace data is ingested and queried.