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Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feb 22, 2023
Great visualization tool, but could have better UI
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable thing was that it had a good visualization tool."
  • "Its UI features to create charts can also be improved. Some features could have a link to the documentation."

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

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Grafana
January 2026
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How are customer service and support?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2066889 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Jan 31, 2023
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: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Grafana
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Grafana. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
880,844 professionals have used our research since 2012.
PankajSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Specialist at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Jan 21, 2023
The solution has a good UI dashboard, is easy to deploy, and is easy to monitor data
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of the solution is the UI dashboard because we need to create a dashboard on Grafana to monitor our data."
  • "I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is used for monitoring the live monitoring of our load test.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of the solution is the UI dashboard because we need to create a dashboard on Grafana to monitor our data.

What needs improvement?

The solution's integration with other tools needs improvement.

I would like the ability to download my results into any format in order to share the information with my clients.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for over three years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We currently have over 50 people using the solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment usually takes one and a half hours.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Director at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 10
Jan 20, 2023
Helpful for matrix and logging, but we need different applications to view specific information
Pros and Cons
  • "The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable."
  • "We need different kinds of applications in our infrastructure to see information in Grafana."

What is our primary use case?

We use Grafana for matrix and logging Kubernetes.

How has it helped my organization?

Many bottlenecks are sent to the base on the logs generated on Loki. We can create alerts based on that log, see the traces and find the bottlenecks easily.

What is most valuable?

The integration between Loki and Tempo is valuable.

What needs improvement?

We need different kinds of applications in our infrastructure to see information in Grafana. For example, some other companies use OneAgent, which takes control like Grafana but in one place and is better than Grafana.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for three years and are using the below enterprise. It is deployed on-premises.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable based on different metrics, and we have 40 users.

How are customer service and support?

We have raised a lot of tickets, and they respond fast. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We are working with the Dynatrace team to have POC email infrastructure.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex because we needed to specify many configurations. I rate the setup a seven out of ten. A third party completed the deployment, and the maintenance was done in-house. It is not difficult to maintain.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution a seven out of ten. Regarding advice, ensure there is proof of courses for every tool to see the best fit for your infrastructure.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Principal Member of Technical Staff at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Dec 14, 2022
Great graphs and dashboards with the ability to try to free
Pros and Cons
  • "There are multiple kinds of models there to create dashboards, which is quite useful."
  • "There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage."

What is our primary use case?

We're getting the data from the CA team to Grafana, just feeding the data here from there. I used to create the standard dashboards and the custom dashboards based on the user's request.

We use the product in a logistics project where I used it for creating the dashboard for the packages and delivery kind of logistics projects.

What is most valuable?

There are multiple data fields we can create and graph models and gauge models. There are multiple kinds of models there to create dashboards, which is quite useful. 

The solution is stable.

Support is helpful.

What needs improvement?

I don't have any notes for improvement. 

There are some areas of network drives that are not showing as expected based on server usage. On the server, it was showing in GB model. However, in Grafana, It is in bytes. Therefore, the calculation it was not showing correctly. That is something that needs to be changed by the vendor team. 

The initial setup is not necessarily straightforward.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two and a half years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable and reliable. There aren't bugs. It's not glutchy. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product works for monitoring as well, including log monitoring, monitoring, and alerting. However, we are using just the dashboard. Therefore, I cannot give my view on whether it is scalable or not.

We have about seven admins and 20 users on the solution. 

How are customer service and support?

As Grafana is involved with the DX APM, we used to reach out to the vendor about any issues on the Grafana related to the DX APM. They had good expertise on Grafana and helped us a lot.

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

I've used other solutions. Grafana graph in representation is more clear for users. They like the view better. Any application has performance issues. We can set up the thresholds on the dashboard to 90% critical and 80% as warnings. We can update those values in the dashboards if we want. It is very colorful with multiple colors to differentiate things. It's just easier to use than anything else.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup isn't straightforward. Users need to learn the product first. At that point, it becomes easier. 

There isn't really a deployment so much as a one-time integration from the APM for Grafana.

Whenever we create a new agent or an existing agent is used to create the dashboard in Grafana, it normally takes one or two hours to create one dashboard. One dashboard means it has multiple panels like CPU, memory, and application back and front end.

There are a lot of panels. If the user request has very minimal panels, then it takes just 30 minutes to an hour. If they need multiple panels and multiple windows for the graph on a dashboard, then it takes two to three hours to complete it.

Once it is set up, the solution is easy to maintain. 

What about the implementation team?

I handled the deployment myself. 

What other advice do I have?

I was involved in the Broadcom DX APM. I did some POCs and created the dashboard. 

There is a feature called DX Dashboards there. It was used in the Lucene queries, and the dashboards are very innovative, and users like it a lot based on the dashboards.

We're using the solution that's the latest version. 

If a potential customer is already into any other dashboard view, I would advise them to create one free license and create dashboards and observe how it looks compared to their existing dashboard. That way, they'd be able to compare and see which would be better for them.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
AbhishekGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Leader at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 10, 2022
Beneficial operational excellence, reliable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Grafana is the ease to build dashboards from observability construction. Additionally, the page services and integration are good."
  • "The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Grafana for observability dashboards.

How has it helped my organization?

Grafana has helped our organization with observability and operational excellence. Operational excellence is a key part of any organization from a data platform perspective and setting the alerts and monitoring policies on Grafana was easy.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Grafana is the ease to build dashboards from observability construction. Additionally, the page services and integration are good.

What needs improvement?

The look and feel of the charting and graph capabilities in Grafana could improve. If they provided a storyboard type of feature as they have in other solutions, such as PowerBI. The multi-tenanted and stitch metrics features could improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Grafana for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Grafana is good. I have not seen any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Grafana has been scalable in the pipelines we have used it in. We have 10,000 web links for 10,000 Grafana dashboards.

How are customer service and support?

I have not used the support from Grafana.

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

We had set up our own monitoring and metrics dashboards and custom dashboards prior to Grafana.

How was the initial setup?

I have not set up Grafana but my team has found it easy to do. We have an automated setup of Grafana. Every new pipeline gets created, and it creates a deep link into a Grafana dashboard.

What was our ROI?

Grafana is good as a solution because it is easy to offset monitoring and alerting policies in Grafana.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Grafana a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Real User
Aug 30, 2022
Agent-free with great dashboards and an active community
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a stable, reliable product."
  • "It would be helpful if they simplified the data source."

What is our primary use case?

It's for monitoring our infrastructure. They have some databases and some applications running Java. There are some Kubernetes and old Kubernetes deployments. The company wanted to visualize the logs and send some application sys logs. This is the main utilization.

It's a web application, Tomcat application, Java application, and database application. They are the main focus for collecting the application or system logs.

What is most valuable?

There is no agent to install. There are many dashboards also. 

There is an active community where you can gather a lot of information about how the solution works. I come from Splunk. If I compare it with Splunk, Splunk has its own SPL, for example. You can play with the dashboard. There is some advantages in common with SPL. Visualization and collecting logs it's similar. However, Grafana is trying to cover many types of open-source infrastructure. This is why I appreciate Grafana versus, for example, Splunk.

The initial setup is not difficult. 

It is a stable, reliable product. 

What needs improvement?

They are doing well in terms of improvements they're making. They progressed much in dashboarding. However, it's very, very complicated when you start to understand how you make dashboards. You need to figure out how you collect and source your logs, for example. In the area of documentation, they must do a better job. Splunk documentation is much more organized than Grafana. Since it's open-source, you have to test your infrastructure more. You need to really understand it before you install it. 

It would be helpful if they simplified the data source.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for about a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

You have to plan. You have a certain number or gigabit of logs that you can index. You also have a limited number of series. For users, I don't remember if we had any issues adding users. However, there is a cost per the size of the logs or the number of series. Scaling will drive costs up. Right now, our IT and development team is on the product. They are encouraging other departments to try it out. 

How are customer service and support?

The department where we worked has used support. We had to collaborate with Grafana since sometimes we were applying some solution that was not working. The logs were not coming and there were some errors. We had to open tickets and deal with the supplier to resolve the issues.

From my experience, when dealing with Splunk, for example, it's a big company and sometimes I have to deal with people that have no knowledge. However, with Grafana, we don't have that issue. They are good.

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

In one company, they asked me to play with Grafana and Prometheus. I've used them both.

I've used Splunk as well. It's not an open-source product. 

How was the initial setup?

It is very easy to set up the solution. It's not overly complex or difficult. 

It's a couple of months before you start. For example, for a company that doesn't have any experience, they need to take time to understand it, especially if they only have a sys admin and not a senior person. 

In our case, we did a lot of testing and installed it on a virtual machine. You do have a couple of months to play with it before you decide to go into production. 

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

We have a license. The pricing varies. It depends on the number of metrics that you want to ingest per day.

What other advice do I have?

We are a customer and end-user.

If you use this product for the first time, I would encourage you to try some sort of live demo. Go to see the product in action and understand how it works, and test it. To install it in the cloud, you can have a free license at the start or a limited license for some events. You can try to play with the product and create some dashboarding to ingest some logs. 

You don't have to install the whole thing as it's complicated to install the whole product, and you need many machines, CPUs, and memory. It's a good idea to try it out in a small way to see if it fits your needs or if you like it.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I had a good experience testing the solution.

This is a good solution for companies that are using, for example, open source or Linux options for all the tools or those coming from the world of open source.

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?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Faustine Chisasa - PeerSpot reviewer
Faustine ChisasaSystem Administrator at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Top 5LeaderboardReal User

Insightful review!

reviewer2535048 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Aug 16, 2024
Can monitor metrics on dashboards but needs to have own query language
Pros and Cons
  • "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 could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier."

What is our primary use case?

We use the tool to monitor metrics on dashboards. 

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

Grafana could improve by having its own query language. Currently, it uses languages like Prometheus or InfluxDB, which not everyone knows. Their query language should be easier.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the product for four years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, our on-premises version was mixed, but the cloud version is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

My company has 2000 users. 

How was the initial setup?

Setting up Grafana is moderately difficult, especially writing query languages and custom metrics. Creating custom metrics requires writing new query language at the server level, which can be challenging.

What other advice do I have?

If you want to use Grafana for the first time, I'd say you can. It's cost-effective compared to other products like Datadog. But if cost isn't an issue, I'd recommend Datadog. For beginners, learning to use Grafana is moderately difficult. I rate it a seven out of ten. 

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

Google
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.