Grafana is a web-based, open source analytics and visualization platform for every database. The main feature of Grafana is dashboard templating, which lets you create dashboards for various use cases.
You may import an existing dashboard, or create a new one from scratch. The dashboard editor is easy to use, and you can drag and drop panels to rearrange them.
In addition to graphs and dashboards, Grafana also has a powerful search feature. You can search for data across all of your monitored data sources, and then create new graphs or dashboards based on that data.
What impresses me about this tool is the ability to share data with anyone in your organization via its dashboards.
However, one downside is that it requires quite a lot of configuration in order to monitor your data sources. The documentation can be a bit overwhelming for beginners, and it can take some time to get everything set up correctly.
Grafana does not have a lot of built-in functionality. For example, there is no support for gauges or maps, so you may need to use a different tool if you need those features. It doesn’t generate reports and doesn’t integrate automatically with data sources, such as Google Analytics.
That said, you might need a great alternative for effective data visualization.
Best Grafana Alternatives
1. InfluxDB
InfluxDB is a time-series database designed to handle high-volume data streams. It has a simple HTTP API and can be used to power real-time dashboards and visualizations.
It is the first open-source, general-purpose time-series database with no proprietary lock-in.
It’s written in Go, supports extensions, and can be used with many programming languages and frameworks.
InfluxDB is schemaless, so you can add new fields on the fly without changing your data model.
It also offers a powerful query language called InfluxQL, which allows you to slice and dice your data in many different ways. Something that Grafana doesn’t have.
InfluxDB is a great choice for data-intensive applications that require real-time analytics. It can handle high throughputs and scale to meet the needs of your business.
And because it’s open-source, you can customize it to fit your specific needs. Its flexibility means it’s compatible with most platforms and systems.
However, it’s currently in its early phases of development and isn’t available on all platforms or operating systems (at least not yet). You can overcome this limitation by using Docker containers to efficiently run InfluxDB on your server.
InfluxDB pricing includes InfluxDB Enterprise, which starts at $9,500 per year, and InfluxDB Cloud, which starts at $0.002/MB of storage. Notably, InfluxDB Cloud comes with a free plan.
2. Kibana
Kibana is a web-based analytics platform that displays and collects data from different sources.
It’s written in the JavaScript language, making it an excellent option for developers and non-developers alike.
Kibana is open-source software that indexes and analyzes all of your data for you, presenting it in a clean UI with visualizations and graphs.
It’s an excellent option for both developers and non-developers alike. With the data collected by Kibana, you can understand your business better and act on the insights to increase user engagement, sales, or any other metric relevant to your industry.
It supports many kinds of data stores (such as Elasticsearch, MongoDB, and others), integrates with many tools, and offers an easy way to create dashboards that can be customized for any purpose (also called Kibana boards).
One of the main advantages of Kibana is its ability to analyze logs; something you can’t easily achieve with Grafana.
The best thing is that Kibana offers a free plan to use these features.
3. Cyclotron
Cyclotron offers a wide range of features for creating dashboards. It has a library of widgets that you can use to create your dashboard and the ability to create your own widgets.
What puts it on edge over Grafana is that Cyclotron offers a vast range of widgets, including data visualization, text and markdown editing, table calculation and management, and more.
You can also create your own widgets if you need something specific for your dashboard.
Cyclotron also makes it easy to share your dashboards with others.
You can easily export your dashboard as a PDF or image or embed it on a website. You can also share it with other users on Cyclotron, so they can edit it or add on it.
Moreover, Cyclotron has a Node.js service that allows you to create your own dashboard from a Node.js application or package and customize it using plugins and widgets added to the top.
This makes Cyclotron an ideal choice for creating dashboards for your own applications or for integrating with other applications.
4. Graphite
Graphite is a scalable real-time graphing system. It is able to handle time series of any length and can be aggregated across groups of processes or machines.
One of the best features of Graphite is that it can be easily integrated into existing architecture. There is a library for the most popular programming languages, and it is even possible to generate images from the web interface.
Graphite can be used either independently or in connection with a full-blown monitoring system. It can also aggregate data from several monitoring systems and represent the information as a single time-series graph.
Graphite is aimed at solving the problem of long-term data storage and graphing. It has a wide range of applications, from IT operations and web analytics to scientific data monitoring and machine learning.
One of the main benefits of Graphite is its ability to scale. The system can handle large time-series data sets without any performance degradation.
Graphite works with numerous tools to visualize, forward, collect, monitor, share and store data. Overall, Graphite has more integrations than Grafana.
Best part? Not only is it free, but also it is an open-source application.
5. Redash
Redash is an open-source business intelligence tool that helps visualize and analyze your data extensively.
It’s made in Python, and it provides a web interface in which you can build and share dashboards. Redash requires no extra components to be installed. It just runs in a web browser.
Redash is unique in that you can connect to almost any data source, whether it is a SQL database, NoSQL database, big data platform, or even a Salesforce instance.
Redash also integrates well with BI tools such as Tableau and QlikView.
You can also use Redash to query data directly from Google Sheets, which is very handy for doing ad-hoc analysis.
Redash is a great tool for data exploration. It has a user-friendly interface, and it makes it easy to connect to different data sources.
Additionally, it integrates well with other BI tools, which makes it a great choice for organizations that want to do data analysis.
Redash has more visualization types than Grafana. They include charts (bar, line, pie, scatter, and area), Cohort, Boxplot, Counter, map, Funnel, Pivot Table, World Cloud, Sunburst, and more.
6. Prometheus
Prometheus is a monitoring system and time series database written in Go.
It collects metrics from monitored targets at given intervals. This means you can find out things like CPU usage, memory usage, disk space usage, and more.
Prometheus also offers a powerful query language to aggregate and process metrics. The collected data can then be queried in various ways, for example, to get a list of all running processes sorted by CPU usage.
Alerts can also be configured, so you can be notified when, for example, disk space usage reaches a certain threshold.
One of its main features is the creation of graphs and dashboards, which can be used to visualize data over time.
Prometheus is designed to be scalable and can handle large amounts of data. Compared to Grafana, It has a decentralized architecture which makes it fault-tolerant.
It also contains client libraries that can be used to instrument applications and libraries for specific needs.
Prometheus is open-source software released under the Apache License 2.0. It is currently being used by companies such as ShowMax, SoundCloud, and DigitalOcean.
7. Splunk SignalFx
Splunk provides a centralized way to monitor and analyze your application infrastructure’s health, usage, and performance.
It offers a comprehensive and customizable solution for monitoring your data pipelines, microservices, and applications.
Moreover, Splunk has built-in integrations with over 50 technologies and services that you are likely already using, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, and more.
You can also use the platform’s open-source libraries to collect data from your own applications and infrastructure.
What gives Splunk an edge over Grafana is that it is designed to help you get actionable insights and alerts in real-time, so you can quickly address issues and ensure your applications are running smoothly.
They also provide dashboarding, alerting, and anomaly detection to monitor your applications.
Additionally, Splunk is powered by machine learning to help reduce false positives. This means you can spend less time troubleshooting and more time developing your applications.
Also Read: Best Open-source ETL Tools
8. NetData
NetData is a free, web-based, real-time performance and infrastructure health monitoring tool. It comes with over 80 built-in, highly interactive, and configurable dashboards that can be created on the fly.
You can use it to monitor everything from system performance to application logs.
It collects data from servers, applications, and devices and displays them in compelling visualizations on its dashboards.
NetData is fast and non-blocking, with an intuitive interface.
In addition, the software offers plugins, templating, custom branding, scripting, and data streaming from remote sources. Dashboards can be created from graphs or added as a widget on an existing graph.
NetData is for DevOps and SysAdmins who need to visualize data from systems, applications, servers, containers, microservices. NetData is built with modern technologies like NodeJS, React, and Redis.
Compared to Grafana, NetData allows you to archive the collected data for usage in custom reports, if required.
NetData’s key feature is the real-time performance monitoring of system resources, providing a clear view of activity on the system. It can help users to identify bottlenecks, spot failing resources, and create alerts.
Explore: Bad Data Visualization Examples
9. Turbonomic
Turbonomic is a cloud management platform that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize workload performance and improve the efficiency of data center resources.
The platform continuously analyzes data from virtual machines, applications, and the underlying infrastructure to identify opportunities for improvement. It then automatically allocates resources where they are needed most.
The feature I like about Turbonomic is the ability to automatically right-size virtual machines and move them to the best location in the data center. This helps to ensure that resources are used in a way that is optimized for a total cost of ownership.
Unlike Grafana Cloud, which is mostly public (designed for teams), Turbonomic supports both public and private clouds.
Turbonomic is often used to improve the performance of workloads that are resource-intensive, such as ERP or analytics systems. It can also increase the efficiency of traditional applications such as web servers, which have been virtualized with relatively few resources.
Turbonomic is also designed to make it easy to manage the entire data center through a single interface. This helps to improve visibility and control of all resources.
More of Its features include automated application-aware migrations, cloud bursting, server health monitoring, and proactive resource optimization. Users of the platform also have access to real-time analytics and a single console for all their data center assets.
Turbonomic’s pricing is quote-based.
10. Freeboard
Freeboard is a platform to create dashboards, which are really just simple web pages full of widgets. A widget is a little bit of information displayed on the web page, such as a chart or map.
Freeboard is especially known for its real-time capabilities and ease of use.
One of the main reasons to use Freeboard is that it is so easy to get started. You don’t need to know how to code in order to get started.
In fact, the easiest way to get started is by copying a board from Sample Boards, which features ten different boards that you can just load into your own Freeboard installation.
Freeboard also has real-time capabilities, which makes it perfect for dashboards that need to be constantly updated. For example, you could use Freeboard to create a dashboard of your company’s social media statistics.
My favorite feature on Freeboard is its Internet of Things aspect that makes it easy to connect a dashboard to multiple devices. To achieve the same in Grafana, you’ve got to set the variables and queries first.
In addition, Freeboard is best known for its flexibility. You can change the layout and design of your dashboard to match your own liking, and you can add as many widgets as you want.
If your dashboard needs change, it is easy to rearrange the layout of your dashboard.
Freeboard offers a 30-day free trial which you will later have to upgrade to use their services. Their pricing model is straightforward. The Micro Plan goes for $12 a month and the Small Plan for $22 a month. Moreover, they have a Medium Plan for $42 a month and a Large Plan for $100 a month.
11 DashboardFox
DashboardFox is software that provides users with a customizable dashboard. The dashboard can be used to track and monitor data, tasks, and projects.
DashboardFox offers an interactive interface dashboard where users can choose from a range of different widgets to be used with the application. The widgets can be dragged and dropped onto the dashboard, and users can resize and move them around as they please.
DashboardFox is an open-source application, and the source code is available on Github. The application has been translated into multiple languages, and more translations are being added all the time.
Moreover, this web application allows users to monitor their website’s traffic and performance. It also provides insights into how users are engaging with the website.
DashboardFox offers users a filter feature that can be used to determine which data is being shown. For example, users can filter their data based on source, keywords, and browser type.
Compared to Grafana, DashboardFox can generate reports for its users. The reports can be exported as PDFs, Excel files, or JSON data.
Overall, DashboardFox is a great tool for monitoring website traffic and performance. It provides insights into search engine rankings and how users are engaging with the site.
The software offers a free trial, and the paid subscription starts from $395 per user.
Also Read: Tableau vs Power BI
12. Instana
Instana is a cloud-based application performance management (APM) tool that helps you troubleshoot and fix issues quickly. It does this by providing you with real-time insights into your application’s performance.
The tool offers automatic management of the app. Instana automatically manages the apps you want it to, so there is no need for manual configurations.
The tool also comes with an effective root cause analysis: Instana provides you with a “root cause report,” which lets you see in detail what happened in the past. This helps to uncover the root cause of the issues. This is a feature that Grafana lacks.
Moreover, Intana aims at making Improvements to DevOps: It enhances the communication between developers and operations staff, allowing them to easily identify problems in real-time.
Overall, Instana is an incredibly powerful tool that can help you troubleshoot and fix issues quickly.
Instana offers a free trial, and once it’s over, you’ll have to pay $75 per month to use their features.
13 Dynatrace
Dynatrace is a powerful software solution that helps organizations to monitor and optimize the performance of their websites and digital applications.
It provides real-time insights into the performance of your website and digital applications. It helps you maintain the performance of your online business by tracking down issues in real-time.
The tool also gives you a complete overview of all your website data, including page views, unique visitors, and traffic sources. It also helps you identify which pages are most frequently accessed.
Moreover, Dynatrace provides complete visibility over all transactions and visitors, which enables you to monitor your site 24/7.
Unlike Grafana, Dynatrace offers comprehensive reports on website performance, traffic, and visitor behavior. This allows you to identify areas for website improvement.
In addition, this software offers out-of-the-box monitoring of web services, which means no setup is required for web transactions.
Dynatrace offers a risk-free 30-day trial. A full stack of monitoring starts from $69 per month.
Check Out: Looker vs Tableau
14 Zabbix
Zabbix is a comprehensive monitoring solution that can be used to monitor a variety of devices and systems.
This tool contains generic agentless monitoring, which can monitor anything as long as a Zabbix agent is installed on the device. This includes file systems, databases, server resources, network resources, and more.
It also enables the monitoring of virtual machines. Zabbix supports both the VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization platforms, so it is possible to monitor the various aspects of a virtual machine.
Interestingly, Zabbix detects problems in the incoming metric flow instantly. This is better than Grafana, which requires you to query and analyze the metrics.
The Zabbix network discovery function makes it possible to discover the servers and devices on a network. This can be used to automatically add new hosts into the monitoring system.
The Zabbix agent is lightweight and can easily be installed on any device or system that needs to be monitored. This makes it very simple to monitor new devices or systems with Zabbix.
The dashboard makes it easy to view all of the available information that is being monitored.
This enables an administrator to very quickly view the status of their system.
In addition, Zabbix is free and open source.
Explore: Sisense vs Power BI
15. Klipfolio
Klipfolio is a data visualization and dashboard software that enables users to create custom reports and dashboards.
Klipfolio also offers a wide range of templates that users can quickly get started with. These templates include social media, marketing, sales, website performance, and finance.
It also offers a wide range of widgets that users can use to create their dashboards.
Moreover, this tool offers users the ability to track, analyze, and share what matters most to them in real-time.
In addition, Klipfolio offers a wide range of integrations with other software products, which allows users to get more value from their data.
For example, Klipfolio integrates with Slack, which allows users to get alerts on their dashboards when certain metrics meet the criteria set by the user.
Klipfolio syncs with various data sources, such as Google Analytics, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube automatically. Grafana doesn’t do the same automatically; setting up takes time.
Klipfolio offers users built-in security measures to protect their data. These include the ability to password-protect their reports and dashboards.
Overall, Klipfolio is a powerful data visualization and dashboard software that offers users a wide range of features to get the most out of their data.
Klipfolio is free to use, but their paid plan starts at $99/month.
Also Read: SAS vs Power BI
Wrap Up
I would pick Kibana as the best Grafana alternative due to its beautiful and clean user interface. It’s also free and open-source.
You can use it to monitor your website performance and get real-time insights.
Creating visualizations with Kibana is intuitive, and you can easily integrate your brand details into the data. Plus, sharing Kibana visualizations with your team is a breeze.
What’s more, Kibana integrates with many third-party tools. For instance, you can use it to monitor email marketing campaigns and even send the data directly to your dashboards.
