Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Grafana VS Apache Superset

Compare Grafana VS Apache Superset and see what are their differences

Grafana logo Grafana

Data visualization & Monitoring with support for Graphite, InfluxDB, Prometheus, Elasticsearch and many more databases

Apache Superset logo Apache Superset

modern, enterprise-ready business intelligence web application
  • Grafana Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21
  • Apache Superset Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-09-18

Grafana features and specs

  • Customizable Dashboards
    Grafana provides highly customizable and flexible dashboards, allowing users to create and arrange panels in a way that best represents their metrics and data.
  • Wide Range of Data Sources
    Grafana supports numerous data sources including Prometheus, Elasticsearch, Graphite, AWS CloudWatch, and more, making it versatile and adaptable to various data environments.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    The platform offers a rich ecosystem of plugins for data visualization, data sources, and apps, enabling users to extend its functionality to suit specific needs.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source tool, Grafana is free to use and customize, allowing organizations to tailor it to their specific requirements without licensing costs.
  • Alerting System
    Grafana comes with a powerful alerting system that can notify users about important events through various channels like email, Slack, and PagerDuty.
  • Community and Support
    Grafana has a large and active community, providing extensive documentation, forums, and tutorials to help users solve issues and improve their dashboards.

Possible disadvantages of Grafana

  • Learning Curve
    The extensive customization features and numerous data sources can be overwhelming for new users, leading to a steep learning curve.
  • Performance Issues with Large Datasets
    When dealing with very large datasets or high-cardinality data, performance issues can arise, requiring additional tuning or more powerful infrastructure.
  • Limited Built-in Data Storage
    Grafana itself does not store data; it relies on external data sources. This could necessitate using additional services or infrastructure for data storage.
  • Complex Setup for Alerting
    Setting up and managing the alerting system can be complicated, especially for users who are not familiar with monitoring and alerting concepts.
  • Dependence on External Data Sources
    The effectiveness of Grafana depends heavily on the quality and stability of the external data sources it connects to, which can be a point of failure.
  • Cost for Enterprise Features
    While the open-source version is free, advanced features and support are available only in the paid enterprise version, which could be costly for some organizations.

Apache Superset features and specs

  • Open Source
    Apache Superset is fully open source, allowing users to modify and extend it as needed without any licensing fees.
  • Rich Visualization Options
    Superset offers a wide range of pre-built visualization types, including pie charts, line charts, and maps, allowing for versatile data representation.
  • SQL Lab
    The SQL Lab feature makes it easy to explore and query data in a natural SQL interface, which is highly valuable for analysts and data scientists.
  • Lightweight
    Superset is designed to be a lightweight platform, making it relatively easy to set up and manage compared to more cumbersome BI tools.
  • Extensibility
    With its plugin architecture, Superset can be extended to support additional visualizations and data sources, which makes it highly customizable.
  • Community and Ecosystem
    As part of the Apache Software Foundation, Superset benefits from a robust community and a broad ecosystem of tools and integrations.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Superset

  • Steep Learning Curve
    New users may find it difficult to get started with Superset due to its wide array of features and technical jargon.
  • Limited Documentation
    While there is community-driven documentation, it may not be as comprehensive or up-to-date as needed, posing challenges during troubleshooting.
  • Resource Intensive
    Superset can be resource-intensive and may require significant optimization to run efficiently, especially with large datasets or numerous concurrent users.
  • Basic User Management
    User management features are somewhat basic compared to other BI tools, lacking advanced role-based access control and detailed audit logs.
  • Less Polished UI
    The user interface, while functional, may not be as polished or intuitive as some of the commercial alternatives, impacting the user experience.
  • Scaling Issues
    Superset can face scalability challenges when dealing with massive datasets or a high number of concurrent users, though ongoing improvements are being made.

Grafana videos

Grafana vs Kibana | Beautiful data graphs and log analysis systems

More videos:

  • Review - Business Dashboards with Grafana and MySQL
  • Review - Grafana Labs 2019 Year in Review

Apache Superset videos

Observing Intraday Indicators Using Real-Time Tick Data on Apache Superset and Druid

More videos:

  • Review - Apache Superset-Building Dashboard-Filter or Slicer
  • Review - Installing Apache Superset

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Grafana and Apache Superset)
Monitoring Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Data Dashboard
78 78%
22% 22
Business Intelligence
0 0%
100% 100
Log Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Grafana and Apache Superset

Grafana Reviews

Top 10 Grafana Alternatives in 2024
Middleware is one such Grafana alternative that offers robust data monitoring and visualization capabilities at affordable prices. Though it’s commercial, unlike Grafana, its rich feature set ensures accommodating your present and future business needs.
Source: middleware.io
Top 11 Grafana Alternatives & Competitors [2024]
Are you looking for Grafana alternatives? Then you have come to the right place. Grafana started as a data visualization tool. It slowly evolved into a tool that can take data from multiple data sources for visualization. For observability, Grafana offers the LGTM stack (Loki for logs, Grafana for visualization, Tempo for traces, and Mimir for metrics). You need to configure...
Source: signoz.io
10 Best Grafana Alternatives [2023 Comparison]
For this reason, many have set out in search of Grafana alternatives. Since you’ve landed yourself here, I’m guessing that you’re one of those people. Fear not! We’ve put together a comprehensive list of the 10 best Grafana alternatives out there today.
Source: sematext.com
Top 10 Tableau Open Source Alternatives: A Comprehensive List
When it comes to visualization, Grafana is a great tool for visualizing time series data with support for various databases including Prometheus, InfluxDB, and Graphite. It is also compatible with relational databases such as MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server. While Tableau can do the same thing, Grafana’s open-source status allows the users to add additional data sources and...
Source: hevodata.com
13 tools to use for DevSecOps automation
🔓Grafana is a multi-platform open source analytics and interactive visualization web application that provides charts, graphs, and alerts for the web when connected to supported data sources. Use the Grafana node to manage your dashboards, teams, and users.
Source: n8n.io

Apache Superset Reviews

8 Alternatives to Apache Superset That’ll Empower Start-ups and Small Businesses with BI
Open-source vs cloud-hosted vs self-hosted Apache Superset open-sourceApache Superset interactive example dashboard. Image source: https://superset.apache.org/Main features and benefits Pricing and offersBest for Main drawbacks Apache Superset alternatives that are suitable for a small business or startup 1. Trevor.ioMain features and benefits Pricing and offersKey...
Source: trevor.io
Top 10 Tableau Open Source Alternatives: A Comprehensive List
Apache Superset is one of the best Tableau Open Source alternatives that you can opt for Data Exploration and Business Analytics. This Open-Source project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, which allows anyone to use it and distribute a modified version of it. In comparison to Tableau, which charges a minimum of $15 per month for Tableau Viewer, this software is...
Source: hevodata.com
Top 10 Data Analysis Tools in 2022
Apache Superset It is an open-source software application, meaning it can be modified to suit a company’s needs. It is among the few data analysis tools available to handle big data. Apache Superset is free to use. Apache Superset is a free tool businesses can use to explore and visualize data. However, it does not support NoSQL databases.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Grafana should be more popular than Apache Superset. It has been mentiond 218 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Grafana mentions (218)

  • What is O11y? Guide to Modern Observability
    Grafana serves as the industry-standard visualization platform that connects to multiple data sources. Creates sophisticated dashboards, supports alerting integration, and enables deep data exploration through custom panels and templates. - Source: dev.to / 14 days ago
  • Preparing your E-commerce Platform for Holiday Traffic: A Developer’s Guide
    Even with thorough preparation, the holiday traffic can bring unexpected challenges. To stay ahead, set up dashboards and alert systems using tools like Grafana, Datadog, or New Relic to monitor platform performance, track errors, and detect anomalies. Additionally, leverage analytics tools such as Google Analytics or Mixpanel to identify drop-off points and optimize the customer journey. - Source: dev.to / 20 days ago
  • Understanding the MLOps Lifecycle
    Some popular tools for model monitoring include MLFlow, Grafana, and Prometheus. - Source: dev.to / 22 days ago
  • How to Monitor SQL Performance in Spring Boot
    Micrometer: Exports metrics to platforms like Prometheus and Grafana. - Source: dev.to / 29 days ago
  • Deploying NGINX as an Ingress Controller in Kubernetes: A Comprehensive Step-by-Step Guide with Architectural Diagram
    Implement monitoring and logging to track traffic patterns, performance, and security threats. Tools like Prometheus and Grafana are beneficial. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

Apache Superset mentions (56)

View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Grafana and Apache Superset, you can also consider the following products

Prometheus - An open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.

Tableau - Tableau can help anyone see and understand their data. Connect to almost any database, drag and drop to create visualizations, and share with a click.

Datadog - See metrics from all of your apps, tools & services in one place with Datadog's cloud monitoring as a service solution. Try it for free.

Metabase - Metabase is the easy, open source way for everyone in your company to ask questions and learn from...

Zabbix - Track, record, alert and visualize performance and availability of IT resources

Microsoft Power BI - BI visualization and reporting for desktop, web or mobile