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grafana

Grafana

TypeScriptGoOpen SourceFree tier

The leading open-source visualization and dashboarding platform. Grafana connects to Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, and 100+ data sources to create rich, interactive dashboards. The visual layer of most observability stacks.

License

AGPL 3.0

Language

TypeScript / Go

61
Trust
Fair

Why Grafana?

You need rich, interactive dashboards for your metrics

You're using Prometheus and want a visualization layer

You want a unified view across metrics, logs, and traces

Signal Breakdown

What drives the Trust Score

Docker pulls
1B+ total
Commits (90d)
1.8k commits
GitHub stars
64k ★
Stack Overflow
16k q's
Community
Very High
Weighted Trust Score61 / 100

Download Trend

Last 12 months

Tradeoffs & Caveats

Know before you commit

You need a fully managed all-in-one solution (Datadog includes dashboards)

Your team doesn't have someone to manage dashboard configuration

Pricing

Free tier & paid plans

Free tier

Open-source self-host free · Cloud: 10K metrics free

Paid

$299/mo Cloud Pro

Most teams self-host for free

Alternative Tools

Other options worth considering

prometheus
Prometheus96Excellent

The de facto open-source metrics collection and alerting system. Prometheus scrapes metrics endpoints, stores time-series data, and evaluates alert rules. The backbone of most Kubernetes observability stacks.

View Compare

Often Used Together

Complementary tools that pair well with Grafana

prometheus

Prometheus

Monitoring

96Excellent
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datadog

Datadog

Monitoring

86Strong
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docker

Docker

DevOps & Infra

93Excellent
View
kubernetes

Kubernetes

DevOps & Infra

99Excellent
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sentry

Sentry

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94Excellent
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Learning Resources

Docs, videos, tutorials, and courses

Grafana Docs

docs

GitHub repo

github

Grafana getting started guide

tutorial

Get Started

Repository and installation options

View on GitHub

github.com/grafana/grafana

brewbrew install grafana
dockerdocker run -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana

Quick Start

Copy and adapt to get going fast

# grafana/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yaml
apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    url: http://prometheus:9090
    isDefault: true
    editable: false

# grafana/provisioning/dashboards/default.yaml
apiVersion: 1

providers:
  - name: default
    folder: ''
    type: file
    options:
      path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards

Code Examples

Common usage patterns

Dashboard as code (JSON model)

Version-control a Grafana dashboard as a JSON file

{
  "title": "My App Overview",
  "panels": [
    {
      "type": "timeseries",
      "title": "Request Rate",
      "targets": [
        {
          "expr": "rate(http_requests_total[5m])",
          "legendFormat": "{{route}}"
        }
      ],
      "gridPos": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 12, "h": 8 }
    }
  ],
  "refresh": "30s",
  "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" }
}

Loki log datasource

Add Loki for log aggregation alongside Prometheus

# docker-compose addition
  loki:
    image: grafana/loki:latest
    ports: ["3100:3100"]
    command: -config.file=/etc/loki/local-config.yaml

  promtail:
    image: grafana/promtail:latest
    volumes:
      - /var/log:/var/log
      - ./promtail-config.yaml:/etc/promtail/config.yaml

# datasources/loki.yaml
datasources:
  - name: Loki
    type: loki
    url: http://loki:3100

Grafana Alerts

Create an alert rule via provisioning YAML

# grafana/provisioning/alerting/rules.yaml
apiVersion: 1

groups:
  - orgId: 1
    name: my-app-alerts
    rules:
      - uid: error-rate-alert
        title: High Error Rate
        condition: C
        data:
          - refId: A
            queryType: ''
            relativeTimeRange: { from: 300, to: 0 }
            datasourceUid: prometheus
            model:
              expr: rate(http_requests_total{status=~"5.."}[5m]) > 0.05

Community Notes

Real experiences from developers who've used this tool