I use the solution to configure new, high performance servers that include application monitoring.
IT Project Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
A stable solution for changing or moving virtual servers with ease
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to change and move virtual servers."
- "The solution should include online support."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The solution's application server is easy to use and its overall architecture is better for development.
It is easy to change and move virtual servers.
What needs improvement?
The solution should include online support.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for six months.
Buyer's Guide
Grafana
November 2023

Learn what your peers think about Grafana. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2023.
746,635 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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.
How are customer service and support?
I have not needed technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is easy.
Five people on our internal team handle deployments and one person handles ongoing maintenance.
What about the implementation team?
Our internal team implemented the solution and it occurred quickly with no issues.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the solution a ten 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.
Engineering Manager at Alice
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.
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.
Buyer's Guide
Grafana
November 2023

Learn what your peers think about Grafana. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2023.
746,635 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Engineering Leader at Walmart
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Information Security Associate Manager at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Great live monitoring and alerts
Pros and Cons
- "Grafana's best features are live monitoring and alerts."
- "It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus."
What is our primary use case?
I use Grafana's multiple dashboards for throughput for real-time analysis of monitoring, checking creds and authentication requests, and monitoring the time between direct services.
What is most valuable?
Grafana's best features are live monitoring and alerts.
What needs improvement?
In order to enable Grafana, you need another tool called Prometheus, which loads data to it. It would be helpful if Grafana provided more information and training on how to use Prometheus. In the next release, Grafana should include API monitoring.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Grafana for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Grafana is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Grafana is scalable and can be implemented in multiple environments.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is fairly straightforward, and Grafana is easy to configure.
What other advice do I have?
I would give Grafana a rating of seven out of ten.
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?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Lead at Capgemini
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.
Graphical representation enables great visibility and source of any issue
Pros and Cons
- "It provides a graphical representation and it's clear to see what's happening."
- "Multiple dashboards combined into one dashboard has slowed things down for us."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution for monitoring activity for e-commerce businesses. With Grafana, we can identify in detail where issues come from and solve the problem. We are customers of Grafana.
What is most valuable?
The solution provides more of a graphical representation so we can see any incoming requests, each and every functionality, and quickly know where the issue is. It's very helpful in terms of monitoring with respect to the market from a request to a response.
What needs improvement?
Grafana has made some changes recently. Previously, we had different dashboards but they have now merged the three designs into one dashboard and now we have to monitor a single dashboard for multiple reasons. It may not seem challenging, but we have critical issues that arise, and we don't know where they're coming from. We have to check all three aspects which takes us longer than it used to and can also affect productivity.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Grafana is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable, we have over 40 users.
How are customer service and support?
We have good technical support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution but for someone who doesn't have experience with Grafana, it may take a while to understand because it presents everything with a graphical representation and you need to figure out why there are multiple dashboards.
I rate this solution eight out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
IT Analyst at Hydro Quebec
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Software Engineer | AWS Certified Solutions Architect at Venture Garden Group
Helps us with data monitoring but lacks detailed error messages
Pros and Cons
- "We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization."
- "The product's configuration for saving files could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this solution primarily for data monitoring, specifically payment transaction monitoring. For example, we use it to monitor payments passing through our systems, integrate with different parties, and track the metrics of payments. The support team can view all these items on a dashboard to gauge the threshold of payments.
What is most valuable?
The query patch is the most valuable feature. We can write queries in different languages, which is beneficial for visualization.
What needs improvement?
The product could be improved with a feature that provides detailed error messages when we encounter issues. For example, we had a case where there was an error message and we could not decipher what went wrong. Additionally, the product's configuration for saving files could be improved, and more plugins could be provided when using the dashboards.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for approximately two years as customers. We deploy this solution on-premises.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution has been stable for us. We can integrate our single internal sign-on into the solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable and we can add people on without any issues. Additionally, we can integrate our single internal sign-on into the solution. About 40% percent of the engineers in the company are using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
We have not had any experience with customer service and support yet.
How was the initial setup?
Unfortunately, I would not be able to comment on the initial setup as I wasn't involved in the setup process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Unfortunately, I cannot comment on licensing and pricing costs as I am unaware of the pricing details.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We chose this solution because it met the requirements of visualizing and monitoring to make decisions. We found it had very good industrial usage from the reports we read when Space X launched.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution a six out of ten. Nevertheless, we recommend using this solution and advise others to go through the tutorial videos before using it. The solution is good but it could be improved by including features that provide more detailed error messages as well as additional plugin options for the dashboard.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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Updated: November 2023
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Insightful review!