diff --git a/airflow-core/docs/administration-and-deployment/logging-monitoring/metrics.rst b/airflow-core/docs/administration-and-deployment/logging-monitoring/metrics.rst
index 49f37ab18207f..d79849c3d29c6 100644
--- a/airflow-core/docs/administration-and-deployment/logging-monitoring/metrics.rst
+++ b/airflow-core/docs/administration-and-deployment/logging-monitoring/metrics.rst
@@ -115,6 +115,42 @@ You need to configure the SSL certificate and key within the OpenTelemetry colle
              cert_file: "/path/to/cert/cert.crt"
              key_file: "/path/to/key/key.pem"
 
+Histogram Metrics and Backend Requirements
+------------------------------------------
+
+Airflow's timing metrics (``timing()`` / ``timer()``) are emitted as OpenTelemetry
+histograms aggregated with
+`exponential bucket histograms <https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/metrics/data-model/#exponentialhistogram>`_,
+so bucket boundaries adapt automatically to the observed range and you do not have to
+hand-tune explicit buckets for metrics that span very different scales (milliseconds to
+hours).
+
+To ingest these correctly end-to-end, the metrics backend you connect to must support
+OpenTelemetry exponential histograms and (for Prometheus) their conversion to native
+histograms:
+
+* **OpenTelemetry Collector** — use ``opentelemetry-collector-contrib`` version 0.115.0
+  or above. Older versions do not translate OTLP exponential histograms into Prometheus
+  native histograms.
+* **Prometheus** — native histograms must be enabled explicitly, and how you do that
+  depends on the Prometheus version:
+
+  * **2.40 to 3.8** — start Prometheus with the ``--enable-feature=native-histograms``
+    flag.
+  * **3.8 and above** — set ``scrape_native_histograms: true`` in the scrape
+    configuration (this option was added in 3.8, and from 3.9 the feature flag is a
+    no-op so the config setting is required):
+
+    .. code-block:: yaml
+
+        global:
+            scrape_native_histograms: true
+
+If the backend does not support native histograms, exponential-histogram data points may
+be dropped or rendered incorrectly. A reference stack (Collector, Prometheus, and Grafana)
+wired up for local development is available via ``breeze start-airflow --integration otel``;
+see the contributor docs for details.
+
 Allow/Block Lists
 -----------------
 
diff --git a/scripts/ci/docker-compose/integration-otel.yml b/scripts/ci/docker-compose/integration-otel.yml
index 8b98699fccbfd..fd7f252c3f1a3 100644
--- a/scripts/ci/docker-compose/integration-otel.yml
+++ b/scripts/ci/docker-compose/integration-otel.yml
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 ---
 services:
   otel-collector:
-    image: otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.70.0
+    image: otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.155.0
     labels:
       breeze.description: "Integration required for OTEL/opentelemetry hooks."
     container_name: "breeze-otel-collector"
@@ -29,9 +29,12 @@ services:
       - "28889:8889"    # Prometheus exporter metrics
 
   prometheus:
-    image: prom/prometheus
+    image: prom/prometheus:v3.5.4
     container_name: "breeze-prometheus"
     user: "0"
+    command:
+      - "--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
+      - "--enable-feature=native-histograms"
     ports:
       - "29090:9090"
     volumes:
diff --git a/scripts/ci/docker-compose/otel-collector-config.yml b/scripts/ci/docker-compose/otel-collector-config.yml
index 9c6ede5f50ca6..b22c07f736214 100644
--- a/scripts/ci/docker-compose/otel-collector-config.yml
+++ b/scripts/ci/docker-compose/otel-collector-config.yml
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ receivers:
   otlp:
     protocols:
       http:
+        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318
 
 processors:
   batch:
@@ -32,7 +33,7 @@ exporters:
     tls:
       insecure: true
 
-  logging:
+  debug:
     verbosity: detailed
   prometheus:
     endpoint: 0.0.0.0:8889
@@ -44,9 +45,9 @@ service:
     traces:
       receivers: [otlp]
       processors: [batch]
-      exporters: [logging, otlp/jaeger]
+      exporters: [debug, otlp/jaeger]
 
     metrics:
       receivers: [otlp]
       processors: [batch]
-      exporters: [logging, prometheus]
+      exporters: [debug, prometheus]