> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/grafana/grafana/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction to Grafana

> Learn about Grafana, the open-source platform for monitoring and observability

# Introduction to Grafana

Grafana is the open-source platform for monitoring and observability that allows you to query, visualize, alert on, and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored.

## What is Grafana?

Grafana enables you to create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data-driven culture. Whether you're monitoring application performance, infrastructure metrics, or business KPIs, Grafana provides a unified interface for all your observability needs.

## Key Features

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Rich Visualizations" icon="chart-line">
    Fast and flexible client-side graphs with a multitude of options. Panel plugins offer many different ways to visualize metrics and logs with customizable field configurations, units, and thresholds.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-Datasource Support" icon="database">
    Mix different data sources in the same graph. Specify a data source on a per-query basis, supporting Prometheus, Loki, InfluxDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and many more through the plugin system.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Dynamic Dashboards" icon="grid">
    Create dynamic and reusable dashboards with template variables that appear as dropdowns at the top of the dashboard. Control time ranges, queries, and display options interactively.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Powerful Alerting" icon="bell">
    Visually define alert rules for your most important metrics. Grafana continuously evaluates conditions and sends notifications to systems like Slack, PagerDuty, VictorOps, and OpsGenie.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Explore View" icon="magnifying-glass">
    Explore your data through ad-hoc queries and dynamic drilldown. Split view and compare different time ranges, queries, and data sources side by side.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Log Exploration" icon="file-lines">
    Experience seamless switching from metrics to logs with preserved label filters. Quickly search through all your logs or stream them live with integrated log visualization.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Architecture Overview

Grafana consists of two main components:

### Backend (`pkg/`)

The Go-based backend handles:

* **API Server** (`pkg/api/`) - HTTP API handlers and routes for dashboards, data sources, and users
* **Services** (`pkg/services/`) - Business logic organized by domain (alerting, dashboards, authentication)
* **Data Source Backends** (`pkg/tsdb/`) - Query backends for time series databases
* **Plugin System** (`pkg/plugins/`) - Dynamic plugin loading and management

### Frontend (`public/app/`)

The TypeScript/React frontend provides:

* **Dashboard Interface** (`public/app/features/dashboard/`) - Interactive dashboard editing and viewing
* **Data Source Management** (`public/app/features/datasources/`) - Configure and test data source connections
* **Explore** (`public/app/features/explore/`) - Ad-hoc query and data exploration
* **Alerting UI** (`public/app/features/alerting/`) - Visual alert rule management

## Use Cases

### Infrastructure Monitoring

Track server metrics, CPU usage, memory consumption, and network traffic across your entire infrastructure with real-time dashboards.

### Application Performance

Monitor application response times, error rates, and throughput. Correlate metrics with logs to troubleshoot issues quickly.

### Business Analytics

Visualize business KPIs, sales metrics, and user behavior data from databases and analytics platforms.

### IoT and Sensor Data

Collect and visualize time-series data from IoT devices and sensors with support for various protocols and data formats.

## Getting Started

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart Guide" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Get up and running with Grafana in minutes. Install, configure a data source, and create your first dashboard.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Core Concepts" icon="book" href="/core-concepts">
    Learn about dashboards, panels, data sources, queries, and other fundamental concepts in Grafana.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Community and Support

Grafana is developed under the AGPL-3.0 license with a vibrant open-source community:

* **GitHub**: [github.com/grafana/grafana](https://github.com/grafana/grafana)
* **Community Forums**: Active discussions and support from users worldwide
* **Slack**: Join the official Grafana Slack for real-time community help
* **Documentation**: Comprehensive guides at [grafana.com/docs](https://grafana.com/docs)

<Note>
  Grafana is production-ready and used by thousands of organizations worldwide, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
</Note>

## Next Steps

Ready to dive in? Continue to the [Quickstart Guide](/quickstart) to install Grafana and create your first dashboard, or explore [Core Concepts](/core-concepts) to understand Grafana's architecture and terminology.