The bridge between data and dashboards, alerts, and exploration
A data source is:
A connection to an external data system
A translator that converts queries into the right format
An authenticator that manages secure access to your systems
Why this matters
Without data sources
With data sources
No data to visualize
Connect to 150+ supported systems
Siloed monitoring tools
Unified dashboards
Multiple logins
Single pane of glass
Script
Here’s something fundamental to understand about data sources: when you use them, your data stays where it lives. Grafana Cloud can store data through integrations or when you send telemetry directly, but data sources are different. They’re connections to external systems where your data already lives.
A data source is a connection to an external system like a database, a metrics store, a cloud service, or an API. When you add a panel to a dashboard, you’re really saying “go to this data source, run this query, and show me the results.”
The magic is that you can have multiple data sources in the same dashboard. Prometheus metrics alongside MySQL application data alongside CloudWatch AWS stats.
Different sources, unified view. That’s Grafana’s superpower.
