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reviewer2535048 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Site Reliability Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
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. 

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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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PankajSingh4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Specialist at Qualitest
Real User
Leaderboard
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Grafana
April 2025
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848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Cloud Engineer at REDtone Digital Services
Real User
Top 5
An open-source analytics and monitoring platform that excels in flexible data visualization and diverse data source integration, but may require improvement in automating daily reports
Pros and Cons
  • "It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports."
  • "There is a need for improvement in automating daily monitoring reports, especially when alerts are triggered due to system downtimes or fluctuations."

What is our primary use case?

We use it internally to monitor both hardware and virtual machines running on our servers and then generate reports based on the monitoring data.

What is most valuable?

One standout feature is its open-source nature. It excels in providing comprehensive details when there are downtimes or fluctuations, offering thorough reports. From a cost perspective, it stands out positively, especially when compared to other tools, given its robust functionality as an open-source solution.

What needs improvement?

There is a need for improvement in automating daily monitoring reports, especially when alerts are triggered due to system downtimes or fluctuations. This enhancement would make the monitoring tool more efficient and streamlined. While it does produce reports, the quality might not be optimal.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have approximately two years of experience working with it.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't encountered any issues or bugs while using it, and it has been stable throughout.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Numerous users, ranging from five hundred to a maximum of three hundred, frequently engage in upscaling and downscaling activities. The system handles this well, and the performance remains stable, even when multiple users log in and out simultaneously.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not overly complicated nor excessively straightforward. It's a manageable process that involves following a step-by-step approach.

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

It's free of cost; it operates as an open-source tool.

What other advice do I have?

It is recommended for use, and in parallel, WebEx is another open-source tool. Both are straightforward to deploy on a Linux server. The process is simple and similar to each other, and there's no need for any complex procedures. Deploying these monitoring tools on a Linux server is hassle-free. Overall, I would rate it eight 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.
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BahmanJafari - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Operations Engineer at RayanHamAfza
Real User
Top 5
A stable solution that enables seamless visualization and movement of data between teams
Pros and Cons
  • "The comparison feature is very good."
  • "The service dashboard is very hard and needs improvement."

How has it helped my organization?

Our team used a Grafana for training.

What is most valuable?

The comparison feature is very good. 

What needs improvement?

The service dashboard is very hard and needs improvement. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Grafana for six to seven years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution was deployed with Kubernetes. The deployment took an hour to complete. It is not difficult to maintain as Kubernetes gives easy updates. 

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

I am using the open source version. 

What other advice do I have?

I rate the overall solution an eight 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.
PeerSpot user
Faustine Chisasa - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at TZ Telecom Ltd.
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Customizable, flexible, open source dashboarding tool supporting a lot of data sources
Pros and Cons
  • "Almost any kind of visualization is possible with Grafana and all dashboards are configurable."
  • "It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific."

What is our primary use case?

We use Grafana to visualize IT infrastructure monitoring data. We have real-time, historical, and trend data that we can visualize in a flexible manner using Grafana. We use Zabbix to collect, process, and store the data. Zabbix has its own inbuilt visualization widgets, dashboards, and graphs, however, Grafana adds more flexibility. We have integrated Zabbix with Grafana using the Zabbix API which gives access to almost all components of the Zabbix Software.

Our environment is on-premises so we have both Zabbix and Grafana locally installed.

How has it helped my organization?

Grafana has greatly improved the way we visualize monitoring data. Now, every team member from directors, managers, sales representatives, to technical engineers can be granted access to custom dashboards relevant to their line of work.

With the latest Grafana versions, reports can be generated from dashboards to update senior management officers. 

The dashboards are not only intuitive and insightful, but they are also beautiful so it makes monitoring and data visualization more enjoyable.

Since it can easily be integrated with other software, having that important part of data processing taken care of makes technical teams more focused on improving data sources and enriching the data.

What is most valuable?

The ability to create almost all kinds of graphs and visualize any kind of information in an appealing way is extremely useful to us.

The customizability of dashboards and widgets is impressive.

The flexibility in integration with other tools as data sources of data enriching tools has been great.

It is open-source, so it saves a lot on costs and the community is friendly and powerful.

The product can be used to cater to multiple use cases. Almost any kind of visualization is possible with Grafana and all dashboards are configurable.

The ability to import and export dashboards saves us a lot of time for popular systems and dashboards.

What needs improvement?

The lack of native ability to aggregate data from multiple sources could be improved. As it is not a data store, it is challenging to correlate data from multiple data sources. Adding an out-of-box capability to aggregate and correlate different types of data would make Grafana even better.

It is limited on the reporting type supported, which is important for managerial-level officers who want reports that are either general or specific. Improvements in that area would be great.

Machine learning capabilities are still limited. This is an improvement in that area is needed.

Performance improvement when querying and searching textual data would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for more than three years

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When computing resources are properly optimized Grafana runs in a quite stable manner. As Grafana is an analytics and visualization platform, it is a bit hungry on CPU and Memory usage. When Grafana instances are properly planned and configured, computing resources bottlenecks can be avoided. Our instances haven't given us headaches from the time we set them up. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Grafana is mainly for visualization, so many instances can be set as needed. Grafana can also be configured for high availability for some scenarios like alerting, authentication, and databases.

How are customer service and support?

We haven't bought technical support and haven't dealt with their customer service agents.

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

We used native dashboards and graphs of another system we use. We use Zabbix for monitoring but we added Grafana to add more visualization flexibility.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward, however, some resource optimization and tuning were needed. We have experienced professionals in tuning OS systems and application resources so it was not too complex for us.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented everything fully in-house. Since we never had a vendor team, we don't know yet the level of expertise they have. The Grafana community has been so helpful in this regard.

What was our ROI?

I can confidently say we have a 100% return on investment. Grafana has greatly enriched our data visualization and analytics. We see the prospect of it appealing even to more senior management. They may not be quite technical, but they appreciate having data nicely visualized so they know what is going on.

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

You can choose from the fully open-source or enterprise editions. We chose the open-source and did everything in-house. Thorough planning and performance considerations are important, as the tool can be heavy on memory and computing resources.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered Kibana before we chose this solution.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is great and is one of the best in the market for visualization.

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.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2132970 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good dashboard and user forums but needs more plugins
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboards are very easy to work with."
  • "There are not a lot of plugins for financial market monitoring."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution in a financial institution to monitor applications and infrastructure. 

What is most valuable?

We really only started. 

So far, the management is very good.

The dashboards are very easy to work with. 

It's a fantastic tool.

Support is helpful. There are many useful forums users can turn to as well.

It can scale.

The stability is good.

What needs improvement?

There are not a lot of plugins for financial market monitoring. Our old tool had more plugin capabilities. 

We need more AI features. We need more data analytics and monitoring done by AI.

For how long have I used the solution?

We just started using the solution. We haven't used it for that long. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. There are no issues with reliability. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I'd rate the scalability nine out of ten. It can extend well. 

How are customer service and support?

The team that is implementing the solution has relied quite a bit on the support and forums, and so far, it has been helpful. So far, we are satisfied with the level of support on offer. 

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

We used to use a different solution. It had very specific tools for fixed message monitoring, among other features, that were useful for finance companies. Grafana doesn't have much that tailors to our sector. 

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the implementation. I work with the team that has implemented it. 

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer and end-user. 

We are likely using the latest version of the solution. I'm not sure of the version number. 

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. So far, I can't say it's doing more than our older monitoring was doing. 

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.
PeerSpot user
VardanSharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Ernst & Young
Real User
Good dashboards, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The dashboards are the most valuable features."
  • "The technical support has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for integrated logging, which works on our Kubernetes cluster and our separate VM. 

How has it helped my organization?

The solution allows our teams to search and conduct application troubleshooting.

What is most valuable?

The dashboards are the most valuable features.

What needs improvement?

I would like to have a better configuration in the next release.

The technical support has room for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I give the stability an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I give the scalability an eight out of ten.

We have five users in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

I give the initial setup an eight out of ten. There was a lack of support documents to help with the deployment. We just need to configure the file to plan the cluster.

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

I give the price an eight out of ten.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Grafana with a Kubernetes filter and it works well. I am not sure how the solution will work on its own.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Director at Taotesting
Real User
Top 20
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: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Grafana Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.