How to set up alerts in Grafana?

Define alert rules visually in the UI by specifying metrics thresholds and notification channels like Slack. Grafana continuously evaluates these rules and sends alerts based on configured conditions, with detailed guides in the documentation.

Grafana vs Kibana: which is better for logs?

Grafana excels with Loki integration for logs and mixed data sources in unified dashboards, while Kibana is optimized for deep Elasticsearch log analysis. Choose Grafana for combined metrics and logs, Kibana for dedicated log exploration.

Can Grafana be embedded in a web application?

Yes, Grafana supports embedding dashboards via iframes or APIs, but it requires a running Grafana instance, which may not be ideal for lightweight or stateless applications.

What data sources does Grafana support?

Grafana supports a wide range including Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, Loki, and many others through plugins, allowing integration with most popular monitoring and data storage tools.

Is Grafana free for commercial use?

Yes, the open-source version under AGPL-3.0 is free, but enterprise features require a paid license. The AGPL license may affect distribution if modifications are made.

How to create custom visualizations in Grafana?

Use existing panel plugins or develop custom ones using Grafana's SDK. The documentation and developer guide provide steps for creating and integrating new visualization types.

Open-Awesome

grafana

AGPL-3.0TypeScriptv13.2.4

An open-source platform for monitoring, observability, and data visualization from multiple sources like Prometheus, Loki, and Elasticsearch.

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77.4k stars14.8k forks0 contributors

What is grafana?

Grafana is an open-source observability and data visualization platform that allows users to query, visualize, alert on, and understand metrics, logs, and traces from multiple sources like Prometheus, Loki, Elasticsearch, and InfluxDB. It solves the problem of fragmented monitoring by providing a unified interface to create dynamic dashboards and foster a data-driven culture across teams.

Target Audience

DevOps engineers, SREs, developers, and IT operations teams who need to monitor and visualize metrics, logs, and traces from various data sources in real-time.

Value Proposition

Developers choose Grafana for its flexibility, extensive plugin ecosystem, and ability to mix multiple data sources in a single dashboard, making it a comprehensive solution for observability and monitoring without vendor lock-in.

Overview

The open and composable observability and data visualization platform. Visualize metrics, logs, and traces from multiple sources like Prometheus, Loki, Elasticsearch, InfluxDB, Postgres and many more.

Use Cases

Best For

Creating dynamic dashboards for real-time system monitoring
Visualizing metrics and logs from multiple data sources in one place
Setting up alerting and notifications for critical infrastructure metrics
Exploring and drilling down into time-series data with ad-hoc queries
Building observability platforms for cloud-native and on-premises environments
Sharing and collaborating on dashboards across development and operations teams

Not Ideal For

Projects requiring only simple, static chart generation without interactive dashboards or real-time updates
Teams exclusively reliant on proprietary data sources not covered by Grafana's plugin ecosystem
Applications needing lightweight, embeddable visualization widgets rather than a full dashboard platform
Environments with strict resource constraints where a heavier observability platform is not feasible

Pros & Cons

Pros

Flexible Data Source Integration

Grafana allows mixing different data sources in the same graph on a per-query basis, supporting even custom datasources, as highlighted in the README's 'Mixed Data Sources' feature.

Dynamic and Reusable Dashboards

Features template variables that appear as interactive dropdowns, enabling the creation of dynamic dashboards for ad-hoc exploration and drilldown, as described in the 'Dynamic Dashboards' section.

Comprehensive Alerting System

Provides visual alert rule definition and sends notifications to systems like Slack and PagerDuty, integrating monitoring and notification workflows seamlessly.

Rich Visualization Options

Offers fast client-side graphs with numerous panel plugins, allowing diverse ways to visualize metrics and logs, as noted in the 'Visualizations' feature.

Cons

Complex Initial Setup

Requires configuration of backend data sources like Prometheus or Loki separately, adding significant deployment and maintenance overhead beyond Grafana itself.

AGPL Licensing Caveats

Distributed under AGPL-3.0, which may impose restrictions on how the software can be used or modified in proprietary environments, as mentioned in the LICENSE section.

Resource Intensive for Scale

Can be demanding on server resources when handling large volumes of data or numerous dashboards, impacting performance in resource-constrained deployments.

Frequently Asked Questions

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