Glossary
Live Metrics
Application Insights' real-time view of incoming requests, failures, dependency calls and server performance, streamed from the app and never stored.
Live Metrics is for watching a deployment or an incident as it happens. The data streams from the app to the portal and isn’t retained, and Microsoft states there’s no charge for it, so it adds nothing to ingestion or retention.
The OpenTelemetry distros turn it on by default for ASP.NET Core, Java, Node.js and Python. ASP.NET on .NET Framework with OpenTelemetry isn’t supported, and the standalone Azure Monitor exporter has no Live Metrics. To turn it off in the Microsoft OpenTelemetry Distro for .NET:
builder.UseMicrosoftOpenTelemetry(options =>
{
options.Exporters = ExportTarget.AzureMonitor;
options.AzureMonitor.EnableLiveMetrics = false;
});Node.js uses azureMonitor.enableLiveMetrics and Python azure_monitor_enable_live_metrics=False. In the classic SDK the feature is the QuickPulseTelemetryModule, switched off in ASP.NET Core with EnableQuickPulseMetricStream = false.
Two changes catch older setups out. Live Metrics requires the Azure Monitor sampler, so replacing the distro’s sampler with a plain OpenTelemetry one loses it. And the API keys that used to secure Live Metrics were retired on September 30, 2025; authenticated access now uses Microsoft Entra ID.