Grafana
MonitoringA dashboard and visualization tool that queries many data sources such as Prometheus, with a commercial Enterprise edition and a hosted Grafana Cloud.
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition is genuinely usable, but some team or enterprise features need a paid plan. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Paid | The SAML docs say it is available in Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Cloud. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Paid | Basic roles (Organization administrator, Editor, Viewer) are available in Grafana OSS; role-based access control with fixed and custom roles is listed as available in Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Cloud. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Paid | The auditing docs say it is available in Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Cloud. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Free | The same page lists the basic Organization administrator, Editor and Viewer roles as available in Grafana OSS. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | Not documented on the pages checked. | – |
| API access | Free | The Grafana HTTP API is documented; some endpoints are marked as Enterprise. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | The pricing page lists community support on Free, 8x5 email support on Pro and premium support on Enterprise, with no SLA stated. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Teams that already collect metrics or logs and want one place to chart and alert on them from many data sources.
Why choose it over Datadog
The core is AGPL-3.0 and runs in a single Docker container with an embedded SQLite database. It reads from many data sources instead of locking you into one vendor's collection agent, so you can pair it with Prometheus and keep control of your data.
Where it falls short
Grafana is a visualization layer, so you must supply and run the data storage and collection yourself, unlike Datadog or New Relic. SAML, fine-grained roles and audit logs are listed only for Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Cloud. The pricing page puts Enterprise at a pricing starting at a $25,000/year spend commit.
Open-source alternative to
- Datadog — Grafana can replace Datadog's dashboards and alerting when you run your own metrics and log stores, though you must set up the data collection yourself.
- New Relic — Grafana can stand in for New Relic's dashboards when you connect your own data sources.
Category
MonitoringTopics
Tech stack
TypeScript
Go
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
