Open-source dashboards plus a credible managed cloud
Grafana started as the dashboard layer over Prometheus and grew into a full LGTM stack (Loki logs, Tempo traces, Mimir metrics). Grafana Cloud is the managed product. The OSS heritage means self-hostable end-to-end. Trade-off: assembling the LGTM stack yourself takes effort. Best for teams that want OSS-first observability or who already have Prometheus and want to grow into traces and logs.
OSS-first matters when compliance demands self-host.
We can't send metrics to a vendor cloud. Self-hosted LGTM stack runs on our K8s. Effort is real but justified. Grafana's OSS commitment is the unfair advantage.
Cost per metric beats every competitor.
Grafana Cloud free tier + a $50/mo bump covers all our observability for 6 services. Datadog quoted $1,800/mo for the same coverage.
For Prometheus-native shops, no contest.
We've been on Prometheus for 5 years. Grafana grew with us. Mimir adoption was a quarter of work but the cost savings vs Datadog paid for it in 6 months.
Methodology
Every review on this page is verified through GitHub OAuth and weighted by reviewer credibility, use-case match, and conflict-of-interest disclosure. Aggregate scores combine with recency decay so rankings reflect current reality. Read full methodology →
