Features
- Beautiful dashboards with 100+ data source plugins
- Unified alerting across all data sources
- Grafana Loki for log aggregation
- Grafana Tempo for distributed tracing
Pros
- Open-source with no vendor lock-in
- Best visualization and dashboarding capabilities
- Supports any data source through plugins
Cons
- Requires assembling multiple tools (Prometheus, Loki, Tempo)
- Self-hosting requires significant operational effort
- Steeper learning curve than all-in-one platforms
Overview
Grafana is an open-source observability platform known for its powerful visualization and dashboarding capabilities. It connects to virtually any data source through its plugin system, supporting Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, CloudWatch, and 100+ others.
The Grafana ecosystem includes Grafana Loki (log aggregation designed to be cost-effective), Grafana Tempo (distributed tracing), Grafana Mimir (long-term metrics storage), and Grafana Alloy (telemetry collector). Together, they form the “LGTM stack” that provides a complete open-source observability solution.
Grafana Cloud offers a managed version with a generous free tier, eliminating the operational burden of self-hosting while maintaining the flexibility of the open-source tools.
When to Use
Choose Grafana when you want open-source observability without vendor lock-in, or when you need to visualize data from multiple heterogeneous sources. Grafana Cloud is an excellent cost-effective alternative to Datadog for smaller teams.
Getting Started
# Self-hosted
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana
# Or use Grafana Cloud (free tier available at grafana.com)