diff --git a/crates/stackable-operator/CHANGELOG.md b/crates/stackable-operator/CHANGELOG.md
index f8d19421a..1bb0cd6ee 100644
--- a/crates/stackable-operator/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/crates/stackable-operator/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,7 +9,13 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 - Support the annotation `secrets.stackable.tech/backend.autotls.cert.domain-components-in-subject-dn`
   in the `SecretOperatorVolumeSourceBuilder` ([#1209]).
 
+### Fixed
+
+- Strip ANSI escape codes (e.g. colors) from captured shell stdout/stderr in the generated Vector
+  agent config, so they no longer show up as garbled text in log aggregators such as OpenSearch ([#1237]).
+
 [#1209]: https://github.com/stackabletech/operator-rs/pull/1209
+[#1237]: https://github.com/stackabletech/operator-rs/pull/1237
 
 ## [0.113.0] - 2026-06-22
 
diff --git a/crates/stackable-operator/src/product_logging/framework.rs b/crates/stackable-operator/src/product_logging/framework.rs
index 35c7bab02..819bafb0d 100644
--- a/crates/stackable-operator/src/product_logging/framework.rs
+++ b/crates/stackable-operator/src/product_logging/framework.rs
@@ -924,6 +924,11 @@ transforms:
     source: |
       .logger = "ROOT"
       .level = "INFO"
+      # Containers capture raw stdout, which can contain ANSI escape codes (colors) emitted by the
+      # tools they run (e.g. containerdebug, cert-tools). These codes are unreadable in log
+      # aggregators such as OpenSearch, so we strip them here. On failure (e.g. non-string message)
+      # we keep the original message untouched.
+      .message = strip_ansi_escape_codes(.message) ?? .message
 
   processed_files_stderr:
     inputs:
@@ -932,6 +937,8 @@ transforms:
     source: |
       .logger = "ROOT"
       .level = "ERROR"
+      # See above for why we strip ANSI escape codes.
+      .message = strip_ansi_escape_codes(.message) ?? .message
 
   processed_files_log4j:
     inputs:
diff --git a/crates/stackable-telemetry/CHANGELOG.md b/crates/stackable-telemetry/CHANGELOG.md
index af9038a73..d1e47f39d 100644
--- a/crates/stackable-telemetry/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/crates/stackable-telemetry/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,15 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+### Fixed
+
+- Revert [#1183], so we again default to ANSI escape sequences, which can be turned off using
+  `NO_COLOR=1`.
+  This way we keep colored logs for human consumption.
+  Instead we adopted the Vector config, so that the Vector sidecar strips ANSI codes ([#1237]).
+
+[#1237]: https://github.com/stackabletech/operator-rs/pull/1237
+
 ## [0.6.4] - 2026-06-03
 
 Note: There are only dependency bumps in this release
diff --git a/crates/stackable-telemetry/src/tracing/mod.rs b/crates/stackable-telemetry/src/tracing/mod.rs
index 64b75e4be..dbe641db5 100644
--- a/crates/stackable-telemetry/src/tracing/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/stackable-telemetry/src/tracing/mod.rs
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 //!
 //! To get started, see [`Tracing`].
 
-use std::{io::IsTerminal, ops::Not, path::PathBuf};
+use std::{ops::Not, path::PathBuf};
 
 use opentelemetry::trace::TracerProvider;
 use opentelemetry_appender_tracing::layer::OpenTelemetryTracingBridge;
@@ -436,21 +436,15 @@ impl Tracing {
 
             // NOTE (@NickLarsenNZ): There is no elegant way to build the layer depending on formats because the types
             // returned from each subscriber "modifier" function is different (sometimes with different generics).
-            // tracing-subscriber does not auto-detect whether stdout is a terminal
-            // (https://github.com/tokio-rs/tracing/issues/1160), so we check explicitly.
-            let use_ansi = std::io::stdout().is_terminal();
-
             match log_format {
                 Format::Plain => {
-                    let console_output_layer = tracing_subscriber::fmt::layer()
-                        .with_ansi(use_ansi)
-                        .with_filter(env_filter_layer);
+                    let console_output_layer =
+                        tracing_subscriber::fmt::layer().with_filter(env_filter_layer);
                     layers.push(console_output_layer.boxed());
                 }
                 Format::Json => {
                     let console_output_layer = tracing_subscriber::fmt::layer()
                         .json()
-                        .with_ansi(use_ansi)
                         .with_filter(env_filter_layer);
                     layers.push(console_output_layer.boxed());
                 }