Send PgBouncer metrics to Axiom

PgBouncer tracks detailed pool and query statistics, but it only exposes them through its admin console (SHOW STATS, SHOW POOLS) over the PostgreSQL wire protocol — there’s no native Prometheus or OTLP endpoint. To send these metrics to Axiom, run the Prometheus community’s pgbouncer_exporter next to PgBouncer, and an OpenTelemetry Collector that scrapes the exporter and forwards the metrics to Axiom.

Prerequisites

• Create an Axiom account.
• Create a dataset in Axiom where you send your data.
• Create an API token in Axiom with permissions to ingest data to the dataset you have created.

Expose PgBouncer stats with pgbouncer_exporter

In pgbouncer.ini, allow a user to read stats and let the exporter connect:

stats_users = stats
ignore_startup_parameters = extra_float_digits

Then run the exporter, pointing it at PgBouncer’s special pgbouncer admin database:

docker run -d -p 9127:9127 prometheuscommunity/pgbouncer-exporter \
  --pgBouncer.connectionString="postgres://stats:PASSWORD@pgbouncer:6432/pgbouncer?sslmode=disable"

Replace the connection string with your PgBouncer host, port, and stats user. You can also set it with the PGBOUNCER_EXPORTER_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable. The exporter then serves metrics at http://localhost:9127/metrics.

Configure the OpenTelemetry Collector

Add a Prometheus receiver that scrapes the exporter and an OTLP/HTTP exporter that sends data to Axiom:

receivers:
  prometheus:
    config:
      scrape_configs:
        - job_name: pgbouncer
          scrape_interval: 15s
          static_configs:
            - targets: ["pgbouncer-exporter:9127"] # host:port of pgbouncer_exporter

processors:
  memory_limiter:
    check_interval: 1s
    limit_percentage: 80
    spike_limit_percentage: 25
  batch:
    send_batch_max_size: 8192

exporters:
  otlphttp:
    compression: zstd
    endpoint: https://AXIOM_DOMAIN
    headers:
      authorization: Bearer API_TOKEN
      x-axiom-metrics-dataset: DATASET_NAME

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:
        - prometheus
      processors:
        - memory_limiter
        - batch
      exporters:
        - otlphttp

Query your metrics

Once data is flowing, query your PgBouncer metrics like any other OTel metrics in Axiom. Pool metrics carry database and user tags. For example, to chart active client connections per database:

`DATASET_NAME`:`pgbouncer_pools_client_active_connections`
| align to $__interval using last
| group by `database` using sum

For more information, see Metrics.