Prometheus vs Grafana (2026): Which Monitoring Tool Should You Choose?
By Alex Chen · นักวิเคราะห์ SaaS · อัพเดท เมษายน 11, 2026 · Based on production monitoring experience
คำตอบใน 30 วินาที
Prometheus and Grafanaare complementary tools, not competitors — most production monitoring stacks use both. Prometheus is the metrics database: it scrapes, stores, and alerts on time-series data with PromQL. Grafana is the visualization layer: it connects to 60+ data sources and turns metrics into beautiful dashboards. The industry standard is running them together. Grafana ชนะ 5-2 in our comparison, but that's because it covers a broader scope.
คำตัดสินของเรา
Grafana
- 60+ data sources (Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, etc.)
- 1,000+ pre-built community dashboards
- Grafana Cloud จัดการ the full stack for you
- Not a data source itself — needs Prometheus or similar
- Advanced ฟีเจอร์ require paid Grafana Cloud
- Dashboard sprawl can become hard to manage
เจาะลึก: Grafana full analysis
ฟีเจอร์ ภาพรวม
Grafana is the industry-standard visualization platform for observability. It connects to 60+ data sources — Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, CloudWatch, and more. The community แดชบอร์ด library has 1,000+ pre-built แดชบอร์ด for Kubernetes, Nginx, PostgreSQL, and other popular services. Grafana Cloud ให้บริการ a fully managed stack including Mimir (Prometheus-compatible), Loki (logs), and Tempo (traces) with a generous free tier.
ราคา Breakdown (April 2026)
| Plan | Price | Key ฟีเจอร์ |
|---|---|---|
| OSS (self-hosted) | $0 | Full dashboarding, all data sources, alerting |
| Grafana Cloud ฟรี | $0 | 10K metrics, 50GB logs, 3 users |
| Grafana Cloud Pro | $29/เดือน | Higher limits, long-term retention, SLAs |
Who Should เลือก Grafana?
- Teams that need rich แดชบอร์ด for metrics, logs, and traces
- Organizations using multiple data sources that need a unified view
- Teams that want managed observability via Grafana Cloud
- Anyone building on the CNCF observability ecosystem
Prometheus
- PromQL — the industry-standard metrics query language
- Alertmanager for production-grade alerting
- Native Kubernetes monitoring (CNCF graduated)
- Basic expression browser — needs Grafana for dashboards
- Metrics only — no logs or traces
- Limited built-in long-term storage
เจาะลึก: Prometheus full analysis
ฟีเจอร์ ภาพรวม
Prometheus is the CNCF-graduated standard for metrics collection and storage. Its pull-based scraping model efficiently collects metrics from thousands of targets, and PromQL ให้ ทรงพลัง time-series queries that are the foundation of Kubernetes-native monitoring. Alertmanager จัดการ production-grade alert routing, grouping, and silencing. Over 300 exporters cover nearly every service and database.
ราคา Breakdown (April 2026)
| Option | Price | Key ฟีเจอร์ |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted | $0 | Full metrics collection, PromQL, Alertmanager |
| Cortex/Thanos | $0 (infra costs) | Long-term storage, high availability |
| Grafana Mimir | $0 (Cloud) / infra | Prometheus-compatible long-term storage |
Who Should เลือก Prometheus?
- Teams running Kubernetes that need native metrics scraping
- Organizations that want the industry-standard query language (PromQL)
- Infrastructure ทีม needing production-grade alerting
- Anyone building a metrics pipeline for cloud-native applications
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Category | Prometheus | Grafana | ผู้ชนะ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data Sources | Self — scrapes your services | 60+ data sources (Prometheus, Loki, etc.) | ✔ Grafana |
| Query Language | PromQL — ทรงพลัง time-series queries | Uses source query languages | ✔ Prometheus |
| Alerting | Alertmanager — production-grade | Grafana Alerting — visual alert creation | ✔ Prometheus |
| Dashboards | Basic expression browser | Beautiful, shareable dashboards | ✔ Grafana |
| Logs | Metrics only | Grafana Loki — logs alongside metrics | ✔ Grafana |
| Managed Cloud | Cortex, Thanos (self-managed) | Grafana Cloud — fully managed stack | ✔ Grafana |
| Ease of Setup | Moderate — config file-based | Easy — visual UI, import dashboards | ✔ Grafana |
● Prometheus ชนะ 2 · ● Grafana ชนะ 5 · Based on 12,000+ user reviews
Which do you use?
ใครควรเลือกอะไร?
→ Use Grafana for:
Building แดชบอร์ด that visualize your Prometheus metrics, correlating metrics with logs (Loki) and traces (Tempo), sharing แดชบอร์ด with your team, and creating alert rules with a visual editor. Grafana Cloud is the easiest way to get started with the full observability stack.
→ Use Prometheus for:
Collecting metrics from your applications via /metrics endpoints, Kubernetes cluster monitoring with kube-state-metrics and node-exporter, and production alerting rules via Alertmanager. Prometheus's PromQL is the foundation of the entire CNCF observability ecosystem.
→ ควรหลีกเลี่ยงทั้งคู่ถ้า:
You want an ครบวงจร SaaS solution without any setup — try Datadog or New Relic. For simple uptime monitoring only, Uptime Robot or Better Stack are simpler and cheaper options.
Best For Different Needs
Also ข้อเสียidered
We evaluated several other tools in this category before focusing on Prometheus vs Grafana. Here are the runners-up and why they didn't make our final comparison:
คำถามที่พบบ่อย
ความเห็นบรรณาธิการ
Stop debating this one — you need both. I've never seen a production Kubernetes stack that runs Prometheus without Grafana on top. The real question is self-hosted vs Grafana Cloud. If you've got an SRE team, self-host everything. If you're a startup where engineers wear 5 hats, Grafana Cloud's free tier is legitimately great and ช่วยประหยัด you weeks of setup.
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Our วิธีการวิจัย
We evaluated Prometheus and Grafana across 7 monitoring categories: data sources, query language, alerting, dashboards, log support, managed cloud options, and ease of setup. We tested both in Kubernetes environments with 100+ services. We analyzed 12,000+ reviews from G2, Reddit, and CNCF community surveys. ราคา verified April 2026.
Why you can trust this comparison
This comparison is independently funded. No vendor paid for placement or influenced our scores. Ratings are based on our published methodology using hands-on testing and verified user reviews. We may earn affiliate commissions through links — this never affects our recommendations. Read our full methodology →
Data sources: Official ราคา pages, G2.com, Capterra.com. Prices and ratings verified April 2026. We update our top 50 comparisons monthly. Read our methodology
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อัพเดทล่าสุด: . ราคา and ฟีเจอร์ are verified weekly via automated tracking.