Felipe Lopes - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Manager at Alice
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
You can create dashboards to instantly see your business, technical, and service metrics
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is straightforward with just a few clicks on the solution's cloud."
  • "The solution has room for improvement with a better API to help automate the construction of the dashboards easier."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case of the solution is to create business and technical dashboards in the metrics provided by the services through Prometheus.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution has improved our organization by providing a centralized way to instantly see our business, technical, and service metrics.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the user-friendly interface and the ability to connect with many data sets.

What needs improvement?

The solution has room for improvement with a better API to help automate the construction of the dashboards easier.

Buyer's Guide
Grafana
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Grafana. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously we used New Relic before switching to the solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward with just a few clicks on the solution's cloud.

What about the implementation team?

The solution was implemented in-house with a few clicks.

What was our ROI?

I have seen a return on investment.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

There are 40 people using the solution in our organization and it requires three people to maintain it.

I would recommend you try to use as many tools as you can. You can have an ecosystem that is quiet and works like using Temple, Prometheus, and so on.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
VardanSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Ernst & Young
Real User
Top 10
Good dashboards, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboards are the most valuable features."
  • "The technical support has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for integrated logging, which works on our Kubernetes cluster and our separate VM. 

How has it helped my organization?

The solution allows our teams to search and conduct application troubleshooting.

What is most valuable?

The dashboards are the most valuable features.

What needs improvement?

I would like to have a better configuration in the next release.

The technical support has room for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I give the stability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

We have five users in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

I give the initial setup an eight out of ten. There was a lack of support documents to help with the deployment. We just need to configure the file to plan the cluster.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I give the price an eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Grafana with a Kubernetes filter and it works well. I am not sure how the solution will work on its own.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Grafana
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Grafana. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Lead at Capgemini
Real User
Top 5
Helps us to monitor our traffic, but there are limited options
Pros and Cons
  • "The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends."
  • "If there was an issue on one node, we couldn't drill down and see all the issues on other nodes."

What is our primary use case?

We used Grafana to monitor our traffic.

What is most valuable?

The best feature was the creation of graphs and trends to know if the traffic was low or okay. We could create week-over-week traffic and trend analysis as well. All these features were good and were the only features I used.

What needs improvement?

If there was an issue on one node, we couldn't drill down and see all the issues on other nodes or see if there were interlinked issues. However, Datadog allowed us to do this. In Datadog, we could take our complete environment and see what nodes went down simultaneously and the cause. For example, Datadog allows you to see in the graphs whether the database is locked or if there was a firewall issue. However, in Grafana, we had to add everything into a single dashboard manually.

In the next release, there should be more of a colour palette. The colour palette in Grafana is limited, and it chooses its own. We used hundreds of services to monitor into a single graph, so in the stacked chart, it chose the colour needs, and when we wanted to change it, there were only four or five options.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used this solution when I worked for Expedia. We used the solution for about three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no breakdowns or hiccups.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I am unaware of the scalability. There were around 500 users when I worked there. The network team was using it on a large scale.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I don't believe that Grafana fulfilled the requirements completely. That's why we moved to Datadog.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup. We had a password issue at a point, but I am unsure if that was an issue with the solution or just within the organization.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Grafana was not an open source, and we had to pay for a license to use it. The same was the case with CashPoint. There was a license, but I'm unaware of how much we were paying.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I believe my old company chose Grafana because they initially wanted to monitor the traffic and know the firewall and scaling.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Grafana a six out of ten because Grafana has limited options compared to Datadog. Regarding advice, it was pretty simple to use Grafana. The trickiest part was creating a new dashboard, working on the query and adding the requirement. So you have to have the source and path handy to put that in the query. Any user can use Grafana once they understand what the dashboards are doing and what data is being searched from those dashboards.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Prajwal Kabbinale - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Easy to use, scalable, and stable
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "It can take a considerable amount of time to learn the graphs if a long duration is selected."

What is our primary use case?

In order to understand trends, troubleshoot any issues, and gain observability of our hundred-server retail market cluster, we started using Grafana. This allows us to detect causes and better understand what is happening in the cluster.

What is most valuable?

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. This allows us to better understand our data and the trends associated with it.

What needs improvement?

It can take a considerable amount of time to learn the graphs if a long duration is selected. Additionally, other aspects such as networking may also come into play. Thus, the loading of graphs for long durations may require additional optimization to improve performance.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of the system a seven out of ten. There are some conditions that can affect this rating, however, we have already addressed a few issues that were causing problems in the backend.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I give the scalability of the solution an eight out of ten.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Zabbix and switched to Grafana because of its ease of use.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple. Depending on our needs initially. To plot graphs, there are many plugins and open-source dashboards available for use. 

What was our ROI?

All of us in the company have been utilizing Grafana and appreciating its results. Grafana is cost-effective and has provided us with a clear, comprehensive view of our applications, infrastructure, and more.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We use the open-source version of Grafana.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

The beginning is simple, so anyone interested can quickly deploy and begin using Grafana without any difficulty.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Associate at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A good starting point for SRE but managing defects is difficult without granular details
Pros and Cons
  • "Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model."
  • "Writing queries can be a bit difficult because the syntax must be maintained."

What is our primary use case?

Our company uses the solution as a monitoring tool that provides alerts and behavior information. We have many Spring Boot applications and the solution works well with them. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is adaptable, easy to use, and works well for microservices development. 

Compatibility with Prometheus databases and the Spring Boot application make it the first choice when moving toward an SRE model.

What needs improvement?

It is difficult to manage defects because the solution does not provide granular details about the internal system for tracing. 

Writing queries can be a bit difficult because the syntax must be maintained. The dependency on syntax should be removed so that it does not matter for queries. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has some stability issues because I don't always see proper results. In comparison to other tools, it is not the most stable when using extensive SRE techniques. 

Dynatrace and ELK are more stable but are more costly. An organization that needs strong stability and has a bigger budget could consider these tools.  

Stability, features, or quality should not be based on cost. It is important to compare SRE models to find the best for your environment. 

How are customer service and support?

I have never needed technical support. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy for on-premises. You install, integrate, and immediately see the visualization. 

I am not sure about the ease of cloud or enterprise-level setups. 

What about the implementation team?

We implemented the solution in-house. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I use the open source model so it is free. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In the SRE model, there are many tools evolving but the solution is a good starting point for SRE with Spring Boot. Once you become familiar with SRE and are clear about the terminology, you can explore other products. Other users will say ELK or Dynatrace are good, but the best solution depends on your requirements. 

SRE is a journey that is uncovered as you progress. The solution is adaptable, easy to configure, works for microservices development, and integrates with Spring Boot so it is the best product for starting points. 

What other advice do I have?

The solution is a visualization tool that is pretty easy to use. Writing queries can be difficult so it is important to learn how to integrate with data sources before you write queries to visualize those metrics. 

I rate the solution a six out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Jorge Florez - PeerSpot reviewer
Head SRE Latam at PayU
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Feature-rich and has many integrations and good community support
Pros and Cons
  • "What I found most valuable in Grafana is that it has a lot of integrations and features that I need for data processing and visualization."
  • "One area for improvement in Grafana is that depending on your version, you have to pay for the features, making the license expensive. It would be great if the licensing model could be more flexible. In the next release of Grafana, I want cluster creation to be available, which would help in Grafana deployment and scaling. Currently, the scaling process for the solution is a bit complicated."

What is our primary use case?

We use Grafana for application metrics and data utilization for consumer databases. We also use it to connect and evaluate clients and create databases where we upload client data.

How has it helped my organization?

We find Grafana essential for our company because of the visualization function for all application metrics in our environment.

What is most valuable?

What I found most valuable in Grafana is that it has a lot of integrations and features that I need for data processing and visualization.

What needs improvement?

One area for improvement in Grafana is that depending on your version, you have to pay for the features, making the license expensive. It would be great if the licensing model could be more flexible.

In the next release of Grafana, I want cluster creation to be available, which would help in Grafana deployment and scaling. Currently, the scaling process for the solution is a bit complicated.

Easier integration is also what I want to see in Grafana in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Grafana for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Grafana is a very stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling Grafana is a bit complicated, so I want to create a cluster to promote high availability in the solution, deploy in one step, and for Grafana to scale automatically.

How are customer service and support?

My company has the open-source version of Grafana, so it gets support from the community. The community support is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

In terms of standalone visualization tools, I've only used Grafana. I used another monitoring solution, but the visualization was only integrated.

Other solutions can provide what Grafana provides, but you need to pay. Grafana, on the other hand, has an open-source version, and as an open-source solution, it's complete, at least for my company's needs.

Compared to other software, it can take some time to get used to how Grafana works, but you can live with it because you can learn to use it.

How was the initial setup?

One person deployed Grafana for my company, and the process only took twenty minutes maximum.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My company uses the open-source version of Grafana, so it's free.

What other advice do I have?

I'm currently using Grafana.

My company is a Grafana customer.

I'm using the open-source version of Grafana, 9.3.

Between sixty and one hundred people, mostly software engineers, use the solution in my company.

Grafana requires maintenance, and that's the responsibility of the entire team.

There's a plan to increase the usage of Grafana in other areas besides engineering. My company plans to create dashboards for data in other areas.

I advise people who want to use the solution to try it out first. For example, Grafana has many good integrations if you need to gather metrics, and you can technically use any query to create dashboards and graphs inside Grafana. I advise that you explore the solution.

My rating for Grafana is eight out of ten because it's a very good product. It's complete and has an open-source version with many features. However, some of its interface capabilities could be cheaper.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Cloud Engineer at REDtone Digital Services
Real User
Top 5
An open-source analytics and monitoring platform that excels in flexible data visualization and diverse data source integration, but may require improvement in automating daily reports
Pros and Cons
  • "It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports."
  • "There is a need for improvement in automating daily monitoring reports, especially when alerts are triggered due to system downtimes or fluctuations."

What is our primary use case?

We use it internally to monitor both hardware and virtual machines running on our servers and then generate reports based on the monitoring data.

What is most valuable?

One standout feature is its open-source nature. It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports. From a cost perspective, it stands out positively, especially when compared to other tools, given its robust functionality as an open-source solution.

What needs improvement?

There is a need for improvement in automating daily monitoring reports, especially when alerts are triggered due to system downtimes or fluctuations. This enhancement would make the monitoring tool more efficient and streamlined. While it does produce reports, the quality might not be optimal.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have approximately two years of experience working with it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't encountered any issues or bugs while using it, and it has been stable throughout.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Numerous users, ranging from five hundred to a maximum of three hundred, frequently engage in upscaling and downscaling activities. The system handles this well, and the performance remains stable, even when multiple users log in and out simultaneously.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not overly complicated nor excessively straightforward. It's a manageable process that involves following a step-by-step approach.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool.

What other advice do I have?

It is recommended for use, and in parallel, WebEx is another open-source tool. Both are straightforward to deploy on a Linux server. The process is simple and similar to each other, and there's no need for any complex procedures. Deploying these monitoring tools on a Linux server is hassle-free. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PeerSpot user
Varaprasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Lead
Real User
Top 5
Great heat maps and dashboards with decent reliability
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can scale well."
  • "The formatting could be better."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for site visibility.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps us monitor our applications and their performance, including CPU.

What is most valuable?

The heat maps are great.

We like the dashboards on offer. 

It's a stable product.

The solution can scale well.

Pricing isn't overly expensive.

Technical support is good. 

What needs improvement?

I cannot think of any specific issues we've had.

We'd like an enhancement of legends and labels in the UI. The formatting could be better. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years. I haven't used it for too long just yet. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'd rate the stability eight out of ten. There aren't bugs or glitches that I have noticed. It doesn't crash or freeze. I find it to be reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I'd rate the scalability eight out of ten. It can extend well. 

We had 50 or more people using it in my previous organization. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is fine. They have been helpful and responsive. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

I'm not sure if it is easy to set up the solution. I did not handle the deployment. 

What was our ROI?

I have not looked into the ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is moderate. It is neither too expensive nor overly cheap. 

What other advice do I have?

I am using the latest version of the solution. 

As a cloud solution, it is very good. Many organizations are going to the cloud, and Grafana is the best way to monitor those cloud environments.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It is a good solution. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.