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Azure Monitor vs Grafana comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Monitor
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Monitoring Software (5th)
Grafana
Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 7.1%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Grafana is 6.4%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Abid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Monthly and weekly resource monitoring has improved efficiency
Azure Monitor can improve by adding some kind of storage for logs. I can get the runtime logs alone, yet if Azure Monitor can independently add one gigabyte, two gigabytes, or five gigabytes at least to log storage, I can fix the logs without syncing with Log Analytics Workspace and Sentinel. If they do that, and if they can integrate a little pricing adjustment, it will be profitable for the Microsoft tool.
Vikash-Agarwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Displays data visually from multiple sources while integrating seamlessly with existing systems
Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards. It integrates with Prometheus to pull data and offers a straightforward setup process. Users can monitor metrics with greater ease, and the tool aids in quickly identifying issues by providing a visual representation of data. Grafana's integration capability is straightforward, which facilitates building dashboards as needed.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution's most valuable features are its ease of use and support for multiple environments"
"The upside to the solution is if you are working in a Microsoft or Azure environment, it makes things easier."
"I am impressed by the reporting on the average eight ports that we get from this solution."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the alert system, which can be set according to our metrics. The integration is smooth."
"The solution is quite stable."
"We like this searchability and availability of the data."
"The dashboard allows us to easily track various metrics and quickly understand the overall health of our system."
"Azure Monitor is useful because of the useful application insights and telemetry, such as metrics and logs."
"The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends."
"It has good stability."
"Grafana is stable and has great engineers."
"We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."
"Plugin: Connecting Grafana to multiple APIs of leading monitoring tools and alerting tools."
"Collaboration: Shares data and dashboards across teams."
"Great capacity planning and the solution has a great GUI."
"It provides a graphical representation and it's clear to see what's happening."
 

Cons

"The solution's monitoring feature has limitations for analyzing multiple metrics."
"Enhancing and reaching a level of detail that facilitates pinpointing and addressing issues at such a refined level within the application and database components would be helpful."
"What I feel is when I open a screen of Azure, some places are very complex to navigate to. It is not very user-friendly when it comes to accessing certain sections."
"It might not have all of the capabilities we will need."
"Currently, it seems it's complicated to get the correct information in terms of what to do and how things work."
"Using Azure Monitor and Azure Arc separately to monitor different environments can be complicated."
"They can simplify the overall complexity since you have multiple data sources in the cloud for monitoring. It's quite simple, but there are so many portals. It takes time to work with it. If they could simplify the user configuration, that would be good."
"Azure Monitor could improve by adding capabilities for data observability and integrating more tightly with their data platform components."
"Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."
"There is room for improvement when using multiple dashboards because they can become complicated to keep track of and use."
"Setting up alerts via Grafana is a bit complicated, and alerting needs to improve."
"I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."
"It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific."
"The solution must provide tutorials and guides."
"There is a need for improvement in automating daily monitoring reports, especially when alerts are triggered due to system downtimes or fluctuations."
"The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Azure Monitor's price is minimal to the point of being almost negligible."
"There is a monthly fee for the alerts triggered and the data stored."
"The tool is expensive."
"Azure Monitor is a competitively priced solution."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The tool's pricing is very good. I could say that Microsoft offers different cost models, which are listed on the product's website."
"Azure Monitor is a low-priced solution, which is why it would work best on small-scale projects."
"The Azure Insight is a little bit expensive."
"My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free."
"I give the price an eight out of ten."
"We use the open-source version of Grafana."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"For me, Grafana is a cheap tool because I don't have to spend much time learning the product since it is a simple solution."
"We are using the open-source license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Splunk compare with Azure Monitor?
Splunk handles a high amount of data very well. We use Splunk to capture information and as an aggregator for monitoring information from different sources. Splunk is very good at alerting us if we...
What do you like most about Azure Monitor?
Azure Monitor is a very easy-to-use product in the cloud environment.
What needs improvement with Azure Monitor?
Azure Monitor can improve by adding some kind of storage for logs. I can get the runtime logs alone, yet if Azure Monitor can independently add one gigabyte, two gigabytes, or five gigabytes at lea...
What do you like most about Grafana?
The product's initial setup phase was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Grafana?
I used the open-source version for my learning, which was free. In an enterprise setting, pricing is reasonable, as many customers use it.
What needs improvement with Grafana?
The interface is not well-liked by my customers. Grafana cannot be easily embedded into certain applications and offers limited customization options for graphs. I think predictive capabilities in ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rackspace, First Gas, Allscripts, ABB Group
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Monitor vs. Grafana and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.