Grafana Reviews

I use Grafana for MYSQL monitoring, monitoring the system, and application monitoring.

The best thing about Grafana is the visualization. The colors and the ease of use make it very user-friendly. Grafana has a huge community, so we can simply Google it and get the answer if we have any doubts.

The second best thing about Grafana is its alerting system, which is easy to define within Grafana rather than defining alerts in Prometheus.

Thirdly, Grafana is completely free of cost. I use Grafana for many things, and all of them at zero-dollar cost. On the other hand, other monitoring tools in the market, like New Relic and Datadog, offer many features, but Grafana is a good monitoring tool for a small-scale company.

One thing I got to know is that Grafana doesn't provide anything for reporting. As a DevOps engineer, I would like to get a weekly report expressing the system's overall performance in the last week. For example, how many alerts were triggered, how many APIs responded with bad requests, and how many failures occurred? All these things are generally required at the beginning of the week so that we can better research and optimize everything that's required.

Currently, Grafana sends a PDF version of the report, and they are not doing anything beyond that. So, that's a feature that Grafana can work on to make it more accurate and better.

In the additional features, I would like to see logs. Logs are basically created when an API is hit. The log contains information such as the API that was hit, the status code, and the time taken. For instance, the log file would store the error message if there was an error in the API. It makes it easier for the developer to debug the API that showed an error. Grafana claims that it has Loki, which is used for logging and saving logs. However, I could not configure Loki with Grafana to see my logs. Grafana could look into this field and make changes to improve it.

I have been using this solution for three months now. I am using the latest version, 7.4.

Grafana is stable. There were some bugs in the previous version, but the latest version is bug-free.

Grafana is scalable for product-based companies, but for service-based companies with multiple projects, it's difficult to scale using Grafana. However, since it provides all the features for free, it's manageable.

We are a small company of 70 people, and I am currently the only one using Grafana. We started using it after I researched and decided to use Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring.

The customer support team of Grafana is available for the enterprise and pro versions. However, there is a vast community of Grafana users, and if you require any help, you can post your query, and you will undoubtedly receive an answer. Most likely, your question may have already been asked and answered in the community forum, so checking there first is worthwhile.

Setting up Grafana can be a bit tricky. If I rate the difficulty level on a scale of one to ten, I would say it's around five. But once you have connected one data source, it becomes easier to connect with other things.

Grafana is not entirely open source, as it has three versions: the free, enterprise, and pro versions. Most of the required features are available in the free version of Grafana, which you will use as a visualization tool, while Prometheus will serve as your monitoring tool.

Therefore, you won't use Grafana as a monitoring tool. If you use Grafana's features, they are free of charge. Hence, you can use Prometheus and Grafana to fulfill your needs. However, if you are using MongoDB as your database, its plugin is not available in the free version of Grafana, and you'll need to purchase the enterprise version.

I will be able to comment on whether Grafana is useful for you or not, depending on various factors. For instance, I would like to know the scale of your company, the products you are making, the scale of production, and whether you are a product-based or service-based company. Additionally, I would like to know what other features you require from your monitoring system.

If Grafana meets your criteria, I suggest using it because it is either free or comes at a cost. The free version of Grafana is usually sufficient for most users.

Overall, I would rate Grafana an eight out of ten.

I was using a restricted version of Grafana where I didn't have the option to create alerts and didn't have direct options to build dashboards. We used the already built-in dashboards there. Therefore, the most valuable thing was that it had a good visualization tool where we got better clarity on the issues to select the timeline and see the data or charts. So, the visualization tool is the most valuable feature I found.

It could be more user-friendly. For example, if I need to build a chart, I first need to sit and learn something on Grafana to write a query to create a chart, it is not user-friendly. 

Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation. 

Another thing I would like is the alerting feature because it was not there in the version I was using.

Grafana is a stable product because with whatever frequency I have used this tool, I have never faced any downtime. Grafana's dashboard is stable.

It is a scalable product because we used Grafana on-prem, with only one server. If we need to add more Grafana servers, it is possible.

I did not use Grafana that much as it was a built-in application of the company I worked at.

Grafana does not have straightforward documentation or direct answers on help pages. I would suggest Grafana users get support from another user or someone who already has used Grafana. While using Grafana, we need to understand how the queries are written to build a new chart. A new user would need to explore it, how it works, how to install it, etc. It would make it easier to use Grafana.

I give Grafana a rating of six out of ten because it is not very user-friendly. It also needs clear documentation and requires time to get started.

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

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

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

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

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Previously we used New Relic before switching to the solution.

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

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

I have seen a return on investment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

We use the open-source version of Grafana.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

I have been using the solution for two years. 

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. 

I have never needed technical support. 

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. 

We implemented the solution in-house. 

I use the open source model so it is free. 

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. 

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. 

We used Grafana to monitor our traffic.

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.

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.

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

There were no breakdowns or hiccups.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I use Grafana since it is interconnected with Zabbix. I also use Grafana for the dashboard of machines from VMware and for some network devices connected to Zabbix.

The ability to use Grafana with Zabbix is a valuable feature for me. Zabbix provides me with alerts and information if something goes wrong, while Grafana offers a better dashboard that is more stable. If you know Grafana well, it can show you everything, like the uptime of different sources and other areas.

I have a problem with Grafana in the area of documentation. There is a problem in the area of some graphs where you connect elements. With Grafana, there is only one name that can be included for ten hours. In Grafana, only one big field with one text name is shown in the documentation. When it comes to production, it is only for a period of time that some fields on each side give the information they have. I researched on Google and other forums and saw that people face problems when they can't connect a field with the same value. The aforementioned area in the tool needs improvement.

I have been using Grafana for nine months. I am a customer of the product.

I have always had a stable version of the product. In general, I have not had any issues with the product.

The technical personnel in my company use the tool, and it is possible to add or delete devices and other statuses in the solution. Around five people in my company use the product.

I have always used the online forums or the internet to find information related to the product. I have not contacted the tool's technical support.

The product's initial setup phase was very easy.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

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. I don't know if there are different paid versions of the product.

My company chose Grafana over other products in the market considering its integration capabilities with Zabbix, good documentation, and the many topics about the tool that are available on the internet.

I would suggest Grafana to those who use Zabbix because it helps users get a lot of information on networks and resolve a lot of problems.

I could do everything in Grafana with the help of graphs and documentation and get information on different types of devices.

I rate the overall tool an eight to nine out of ten.

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.

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

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.

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

I've been using Grafana for four years.

Grafana is a very stable 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.