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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
4th
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 April 2025, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Azure Monitor is 7.5%, 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 most valuable feature is that it ensures our servers are up."
"The most valuable functions of Azure Monitor for our clients are its ability to monitor CPU usage and detect any potential issues before they escalate into actual problems. This helps in proactively addressing issues and preventing disruptions in our services. Additionally, Azure Monitor's integration with Azure for implementation has been quite straightforward and easy to manage."
"The most valuable features of Azure Monitor are the login analytics workspace and we can write any kind of custom queries in order to receive the data that is inserted into the login analytics workspace, diagnostic settings, et cetera."
"Technical support is helpful."
"It has good troubleshooting features."
"A product that is well-integrated for monitoring Microsoft Azure."
"The overall product rating is nine out of ten."
"Data exporting is easy, and this tool works seamlessly with other solutions. It's a stable and low-priced solution."
"We like the alert features."
"Plugin: Connecting Grafana to multiple APIs of leading monitoring tools and alerting tools."
"The comparison feature is very good."
"It's easy to make changes. We can put many dashboards in one place. There's no delay in showing data - what you see on Grafana matches the server metrics."
"Grafana provides a user-friendly interface for viewing infrastructure metrics through dashboards."
"Grafana is able to connect with multiple data sources, unlike Elasticsearch."
"We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."
"Kubernetes could help us to better visualize the trend of our data by recording and displaying our history over a chosen duration, such as the last 30 days."
 

Cons

"The solution should have cross-connection or cross-communication between tech partners."
"They need to work with other cloud providers - not just Azure."
"I'd like the solution to do more around vulnerability assessment. It's lacking in the product right now."
"This solution could be improved with more out-of-the-box functionalities and artificial intelligence to complete event correlation."
"There are a lot of things that take more time to do, such as charting, alerting, and correlation of data, and things like that. Azure Monitor doesn't tell you why something happened. It just tells you that it happened. It should also have some type of AI. Environments and applications are becoming more and more complex every day with hundreds or thousands of microservices. Therefore, having to do a lot of the stuff manually takes a lot of time, and on top of that, troubleshooting issues takes a lot of time. The traditional method of troubleshooting doesn't really work for or apply to this environment we're in. So, having an AI-based system and the ability to automate deployments of your monitoring and configurations makes it much easier."
"The price could be lower but it is not a must."
"No improvements are needed from my perspective."
"The pricing model could be more flexible."
"It's difficult to see the trends on the graph when the range is too long."
"​The security needs to be improved, such as the capacity to add permissions on dashboards.​"
"The solution must provide tutorials and guides."
"The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."
"The main drawback is the necessity for endpoint monitoring."
"The solution should include online support."
"It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus."
"Its interface could be more accessible."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product offers a pay-as-you-go model to users. The charges are to be paid according to the usage of the product."
"The solution is very costly because you have to pay for various things such as adding to logs and internet alerts."
"The solution is expensive, but it is worth the price."
"The solution is a pay-as-you-go consumption service and is the least expensive in the market."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"I would rate Azure Monitor a two out of five for affordability."
"Customers of Azure Monitor must pay an amount that depends largely on how many services they need to integrate and the storage space required in terms of logs, etc. If they only have a few small services to monitor, the price won't be too high, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, it can certainly get pricey."
"Its cost depends on the ingestion of the logs. It could go anywhere. For an out-of-the-box platform such as FrameFlow, you pay pretty much a fixed price and you get what you get, whereas, with something like Azure Monitor, you pay by the ingestion charge, so you can have one client who pays hardly anything for the same alerts, and another client pays loads and loads."
"The solution is expensive."
"​Grafana is free and open source.​"
"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."
"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."
"It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool."
"Since Grafana is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
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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
15%
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.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.