Grafana is an open-source visualization and analytics platform that stands out in the field of monitoring solutions. Grafana is widely recognized for its powerful, easy-to-set-up dashboards and visualizations. Grafana supports integration with a wide array of data sources and tools, including Prometheus, InfluxDB, MySQL, Splunk, and Elasticsearch, enhancing its versatility. Grafana has open-source and cloud options; the open-source version is a good choice for organizations with the resources to manage their infrastructure and want more control over their deployment. The cloud service is a good choice if you want a fully managed solution that is easy to start with and scale.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Grafana | 6.0% |
| Dynatrace | 10.2% |
| Datadog | 8.5% |
| Other | 75.3% |
| Type | Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability | Aug 29, 2025 | Download |
| Product | Reviews, tips, and advice from real users | Aug 29, 2025 | Download |
| Comparison | Grafana vs Datadog | Aug 29, 2025 | Download |
| Comparison | Grafana vs Dynatrace | Aug 29, 2025 | Download |
| Comparison | Grafana vs New Relic | Aug 29, 2025 | Download |
| Title | Rating | Mindshare | Recommending | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dynatrace | 4.4 | 10.2% | 95% | 349 interviewsAdd to research |
| Zabbix | 4.2 | 3.7% | 95% | 107 interviewsAdd to research |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 11 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 7 |
| Large Enterprise | 21 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 429 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 226 |
| Large Enterprise | 1235 |
A key strength of Grafana lies in its ability to explore, visualize, query, and alert on the collected data through operational dashboards. These dashboards are highly customizable and visually appealing, making them a valuable asset for data analysis, performance tracking, trend spotting, and detecting irregularities.
Grafana provides both an open-source solution with an active community and Grafana Cloud, a fully managed and composable observability offering that packages together metrics, logs, and traces with Grafana. The open-source version is licensed under the Affero General Public License version 3.0 (AGPLv3), being free and unlimited. Grafana Cloud and Grafana Enterprise are available for more advanced needs, catering to a wider range of organizational requirements. Grafana offers options for self-managed backend systems or fully managed services via Grafana Cloud. Grafana Cloud extends observability with a wide range of solutions for infrastructure monitoring, IRM, load testing, Kubernetes monitoring, continuous profiling, frontend observability, and more.
The Grafana users we interviewed generally appreciate Grafana's ability to connect with various data sources, its straightforward usability, and its integration capabilities, especially in developer-oriented environments. The platform is noted for its practical alert configurations, ticketing backend integration, and as a powerful tool for developing dashboards. However, some users find a learning curve in the initial setup and mention the need for time investment to customize and leverage Grafana effectively. There are also calls for clearer documentation and simplification of notification alert templates.
In summary, Grafana is a comprehensive solution for data visualization and monitoring, widely used across industries for its versatility, ease of use, and extensive integration options. It suits organizations seeking a customizable and scalable platform for visualizing time-series data from diverse sources. However, users should be prepared for some complexity in setup and customization and may need to invest time in learning and tailoring the system to their specific needs.
Microsoft, Adobe, Optum, Sky, Nvidia, Roblox, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Informatica, Maersk, Daimler Truck, SNCF, Atlassian, DHL, SAP, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, Citi and many others.
| Author info | Rating | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|
| DevOps Team Lead at Kadabra | 4.5 | We use Grafana over DataDog for log processing on AWS due to its cost-effectiveness, ease of use, and open-source flexibility. Its documentation and AI tools enable quicker data analysis, though improvements in user simplicity are needed. |
| Director of Engineering at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees | 3.0 | We use Grafana for monitoring and alerting, focusing on observability with tools like Tempo for tracing. Though we're exploring its capabilities, improvements in AI and tracing would enhance its utility. We work with Grafana mainly in an on-prem environment. |
| Sr. DevOps at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees | 4.0 | I use Grafana for personal data visualization, particularly for Dora Metrics, which helps assess team performance objectively. While Grafana's open-source model appeals to management, Datadog's simpler dashboard creation and ease of use make it preferable for enterprises. |
| DevOps Engineer at Vimeo, LLC | 4.0 | I primarily use Grafana for monitoring Kubernetes with Prometheus. I appreciate its easy setup for data sources and integrations with multiple sources. Improvements could be made in simplifying query merging. We deploy Grafana on Amazon Web Services (AWS). |
| Aplication Architect at Amazon | 4.5 | In using Grafana, I found it effective for displaying Prometheus data through a user-friendly interface, making monitoring and analysis straightforward. However, Grafana could improve by developing its own metrics system to reduce dependency on external tools. |
| BI and Analytics Engineer at Sandvine Inc | 3.5 | I use Grafana primarily for monitoring errors and CPU usage, benefiting from its plugins and alerting features. However, the interface needs improvement, offering limited customization and embedding options. Enhancing predictive alerting capabilities would be advantageous. |
| AWS Cloud Re-Start Program Specialist at Orange RDC (Congo) | 2.0 | I use Grafana for deploying OpenVideo and writing articles, but find its features too complicated and not intuitive. I prefer CloudWatch due to its ease of use and customizable metrics, which offer a more straightforward interface. |
| Senior Software Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees | 4.0 | I primarily use Grafana for dashboards, which allows me to monitor traffic and errors effectively. The customization features are highly valuable, though stability needs improvement. I haven't previously used or considered other solutions, nor do I have a specific cloud provider. |
