What changed
On 5 November 2026 Zabbix released 8.0.0 LTS. Its proxies can collect OpenTelemetry application telemetry, the frontend visualises APM traces, and a new telemetry query item connects that data to monitoring. The release also adds a ClickHouse history backend and cluster support, configurable complex event processing and more restrictive API defaults. This is a broader architectural change than a routine monitoring dashboard update.
Why it matters
Self-hosted operators can investigate application traces and infrastructure metrics in one monitoring system rather than assume a separate APM stack is mandatory. ClickHouse offers an alternative history-storage architecture, while complex event processing can group related symptoms. These changes introduce configuration, storage and access-control decisions: they are not a drop-in guarantee of lower cost or faster queries.
Application telemetry reaches Zabbix proxies
The 8.0 release notes document an OpenTelemetry collector on Zabbix proxies, trace visualisation, resource-attribute permissions, an APM data source and telemetry query items. Applications or existing collectors can send OTLP/gRPC data to the proxy. Teams should verify supported signals, instrumentation, storage retention and sampling for their workloads rather than assuming feature parity with a dedicated APM product.
ClickHouse becomes a history backend
Zabbix adds ClickHouse-backed history and cluster support. Its release notes specify ClickHouse versions 26.3 through 26.9 as supported at release time. This is an optional architectural choice with operational consequences for capacity, backups, queries and maintenance; vendor performance improvements have not been independently reproduced.
Events and permissions change
Complex event processing gains configurable operations, including handling closed events, to correlate related problems. Zabbix also turns API access off by default for user roles and introduces finer proxy visibility permissions. Upgrade testing should explicitly check integrations, API clients, alerting rules and role assignments.
Plan the LTS upgrade rather than assuming compatibility
Zabbix's release notes direct existing users to the version-specific 8.0 upgrade notes and upgrade procedure. Back up the database and configuration, check frontend/PHP and backend version support, and rehearse proxy/server upgrade order and rollback in staging. The vendor describes 8.0 as long-term support; its stated full support runs to November 2029 and limited support to November 2031.