Grafana

What it is for

Grafana is a hosted dashboard-edit desk: you open a panel, and Cloud Free is $0 always. Use it when the job is time series you edit at $0, not when you need a $20 chat seat.

What makes it unique: the cover is the official Grafana dashboard edit (Up metrics A-series 90–100%, last 6 hours GMT, __name__ = ALERTS) from the docs still — not a pricing card. The series itself is ops of Dashboards. Grafana Cloud bills $0 or from $19 / month + usage, not a chat seat.

Key features

• Dashboards — a panel you edit and save (cover still; docs). One board. Cover Up metrics and the 6-hour range sit here.
• Explore — an ad-hoc query you do not save as a dashboard (docs). Explore, not a dashboard. Scratch queries sit here.
• Alerting — a rule you fire from a query (docs). An alert, not Explore. Contact points sit here.
• Connections — a data source you attach (docs). A connection, not an alert. Prometheus / Loki sit here.
• IRM / incidents — an incident you run from Grafana Cloud (docs). An incident, not a data source. Pages sit here.

The __name__ = ALERTS filter on the cover is a query on Dashboards (not a sixth desk). Free / Pro tiles are the meter. The $19 platform fee (10k series included) is the Pro meter, not a desk we fold into Dashboards.

Who it's for

Best fit: observability teams who will stay on Cloud Free at $0 always (usage limits, 14-day retention) while they open a first dashboard, then buy Pro from $19 / month + usage (platform fee $19 includes 10k active series) or Enterprise from $25,000 / year.

Pricing

Verified 2026-10-23 (Asia/Shanghai) from grafana.com/pricing. Tiles print Always free Always $0, Pro From $19 / month + usage, and Enterprise Starts at $25,000 / year spend commit. Metrics copy also prints a platform fee of $19 per month that includes 10k active series.

• Free — $0 always. No charges ever. All Grafana Cloud services with usage limits. 14-day retention for metrics, logs, traces, profiles, and k6. Community support. Adaptive Telemetry and AI Assistant on the Free benefits.
• Pro — from $19 / month + usage. Everything in Free plus pay-as-you-go above the free tier. 8×5 email support. 13-month retention on the copy we fetched. Platform fee $19 / month includes 10k active series (metrics card).
• Enterprise — starts at $25,000 / year spend commit. Premium support, custom retention, compliance. Contact us.
• Self-hosted OSS — Grafana itself is open source on GitHub; Cloud dollars above are the hosted tiles.

Confirm checkout; taxes follow your location.

Limitations / costs

• Free retention is 14 days. Longer retention is the $19 Pro tile + usage.
• $19 is a platform fee plus usage, not unlimited series. Re-read the 10k-series include before you budget.
• A dashboard desk, not a trace-only store. For Honeycomb see Honeycomb. For SigNoz see SigNoz.

Alternatives

• Honeycomb — wide-event traces when you want Honeycomb’s query desk, not Grafana’s $0 / $19 dashboard edit.
• SigNoz — open-source observability when you want SigNoz’s self-host, not Grafana Cloud’s platform fee.
• Dash0 — OpenTelemetry-native when you want Dash0’s traces, not Grafana’s Up-metrics panel.

Official tutorial

Official Grafana channel video: Introduction to Digital Experience Monitoring with Grafana Cloud (oEmbed author: Grafana). First-party Cloud product walkthrough (not the conceptual beginners ep. 1); the dashboard-edit still is the cover. DEM on the video is a Cloud product, not generate-on-Dashboards.

Written path: grafana.com/pricing plus the dashboard-edit still.

Website

https://grafana.com/grafana/

Repository

https://github.com/grafana/grafana

Source

Catalog row curated for AI Tools Nav. Cover is the official Grafana dashboard-edit still from the docs CDN. Dollars checked on grafana.com/pricing (Free $0 always; Pro from $19/mo + usage, platform fee $19 includes 10k series; Enterprise from $25,000/yr). Tutorial oEmbed author: Grafana.

Last verified

2026-10-23 (Asia/Shanghai) editorial check.