Grafana Cloud
Replaceable in one session with an AI coding agent.
Hosted Grafana with metrics, logs and traces attached: the dashboards you would run yourself, plus the storage behind them, operated by someone else.
Self-host the stack, and put the alerting somewhere else. STACK - Prometheus for metrics, Loki for logs, Grafana for dashboards, all in Docker Compose THE RULE THAT MATTERS - Alerting must not run on the infrastructure it watches - Put Alertmanager, or a simple external checker, on a different provider entirely METRICS - Instrument with the Prometheus client for your language - Four numbers per service to start: request rate, error rate, latency percentiles, saturation - Resist adding more until one of those fails to answer a question RETENTION - Prometheus keeps a fixed window; write it down and size the disk for it - Anything longer goes to remote storage, and that is where self-hosting gets expensive DASHBOARDS AS CODE - Dashboard JSON in the repository, provisioned at start - A dashboard edited in the interface and not committed is a dashboard that will be lost Include the compose file, the scrape config and the four base panels.
What you lose
- Running Prometheus, Loki and Tempo yourself, which is real operational work at any scale
- Long retention without you managing the disks
- Alerting that keeps working when your own infrastructure is the thing that broke
If you would rather not build
- Netdata, for a single machine with no configuration
- VictoriaMetrics, for cheaper long retention
The escape hatch
open source · no votes, no paid placement
Prometheus
$0Metrics collection and alerting rules, the standard for this job.
prometheus/prometheusfree · open source
Why this verdict
our own opinion · changed only by a person
70/100
Verdict yes at 70. Every component is free; you are paying for operation and retention. The alerting-elsewhere rule is the one thing not to compromise on.
History
tracked since 10 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten
Nothing recorded yet. This chart fills in once the page has visitors, votes or prompt copies — it will not draw a flat line to look busy.
Questions about Grafana Cloud
answered from the record above
Is Grafana Cloud free?
No — the plan we track is $19 a month. Pro from around $19/month billed monthly plus usage; a free tier covers small projects.
Can you replace Grafana Cloud by building your own?
YES. Replaceable in one session with an AI coding agent. Replacement score 70 out of 100, build time one session. Read what you lose before you decide.
How much does Grafana Cloud cost?
$19 a month on Pro — $228 a year. Recorded 10 Aug 2026.
What do you lose by replacing Grafana Cloud?
Running Prometheus, Loki and Tempo yourself, which is real operational work at any scale; Long retention without you managing the disks; Alerting that keeps working when your own infrastructure is the thing that broke. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to Grafana Cloud?
Yes: Prometheus, Grafana. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.
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