Self-host Grafana

Observability

deployed & timed by usprices checked · Jul 2026

The standard open-source dashboarding and visualization layer for metrics, logs, and traces, querying Prometheus, Loki, and dozens of other data sources.

Datadog / yr$180

Self-hosted / yr~$55

You keep$125/yr

Key facts

CategoryObservability

LicenseAGPL-3.0

StackGo, TypeScript

Min RAM1024 MB

Dockeryes

Difficulty

Our recommendation

Reach for Grafana when you already have metrics or logs somewhere (Prometheus, Loki, ClickHouse, a dozen others) and need the dashboarding and alerting layer on top — it's the standard, not a full observability stack by itself. If you want metrics collection too, pair it with Prometheus rather than looking for that inside Grafana.

What you need

Any VPS with at least 1024 MB of RAM
A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
Under an hour if you've used Docker before

Install with Docker Compose

Save this as compose.yml and run docker compose up -d:

# Grafana — official OSS Docker image
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name=grafana grafana/grafana-oss  #  →  http://SERVER_IP:3000

vps picksBest VPS for self-hostingbenchmarked quarterly · re-priced monthly

What you take on

Grafana is the easy part of a self-hosted observability stack; the caveats are mostly about what it doesn't do alone:

non-negotiableIt's AGPL-3.0. Same network-copyleft consideration as OpenObserve — check it fits your use before building a product on top.

non-negotiableIt's visualization, not storage. Grafana queries a data source; you still need to run and size Prometheus, Loki, or another backend yourself.

non-negotiableDashboards and alert rules want backing up. They live in Grafana's own database (SQLite by default) — move to Postgres and back it up once you depend on it.