Difference between otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib vs otel/opentelemetry-collector

[rabollin]

We are using OTEL libraries for generating Traces, logs & metrics. There are two sets of docker images - one under otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib and the other is- otel/opentelemetry-collector. What is the difference between these 2, what is recommended for what scenarios?

Is this component GAed already? if not what is the timeline for GA.

[jpkrohling]

The core distribution contains only a handful of components, such as the OTLP receiver/exporter, batch processor, and a few receivers and exporters related to open source projects (Jaeger, Zipkin, Prometheus, ...):

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/blob/main/distributions/otelcol/manifest.yaml

The contrib is everything under the sun:
https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/blob/main/distributions/otelcol-contrib/manifest.yaml