Methods and systems for providing distributed tracing for application performance monitoring utilizing a distributed search engine in a microservices architecture. An example method comprises providing a user interface (UI) including a distributed trace indicating in real time the services invoked to serve an incoming HTTP request, the UI further including, in a single view, associated execution times for the services shown as a timeline waterfall. The distributed trace automatically propagates a trace ID to link services end-to-end in real time until a response to the request is served. The single view also provides graphs of response time information and the distribution of response times for the services. In response to selection of a particular element of the distribution, the UI provides respective timing details. The graphs and data shown on the single view can be filtered based on metadata input into a search field of the single view.