Grafana vs Kibana

It is very obvious that when working with millions or thousands of data, the process of data visualization makes a designer’s job quite easy. Basically, visualization tools provide an easier way to create visual representations of large data sets. Both Kibana and Grafana are tools that have outstanding features. Where Grafana is an open-source visualization tool while Kibana is a multi-platform open-source visualization tool. It is not at all easy to choose which one to use as both have their own pros and cons. There are some aspects in which both tools differ. Let’s highlight that points to choose the right tool.

What is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source interactive data visualization platform. In this, users are allowed to see their data in the representation of charts and graphs. Further, these charts and graphs are unified into one or multiple dashboards for easier interpretation and understanding. With this tool, one can take any of their existing data and then visualize it according to the requirement, and all from a single dashboard only.

Key Features

1. It unifies the data.
2. It translates and transforms any of your data into flexible and versatile dashboards.
3. It allows the organization to build dashboards specifically for the firm and specific teams.
4. The data is accessible to everyone in the organization, and not just a single person.

Advantages

1. It is a free and open-source tool.
2. Graphs and dashboards are portable. Dashboards are created on the client side.
3. Set-up is simple. It does not require an HTTP server as it is self-sufficient.
4. Grafana plugins render the data in real-time without requiring you to migrate or ingest your data.

Disadvantages

1. It doesn’t support log analysis.
2. The functionality of customization is less.
3. It has limited dashboard organizations and documentation is not up to the mark.

What is Kibana?

Kibana is an open-source visualization and is a part of the ELK stack. It is used for time-series analysis, log analysis, and application monitoring. It offers a presentation tool, known as Canvas. With this tool, you can create slide decks that extract live data directly from Elasticsearch. It lets the customer visualize their Elasticsearch data and navigate the Elastic Stack. Live data can be seen through the help of Charts, tables, maps, and other tools in Kibana.

Key Features

1. The process of data visualization through a drag-and-drop experience is simplified through the Kibana lens.
2. An infinite number of aggregations and pipeline aggregations are combined through the framework, Time Series Visual Builder (TSVB) to display the complex data.
3. Numerous measures are there to display the data in the form of a Line chart, area chart, bar chart, heat map, and pie charts.
4. Community-driven plugin modules add more functionality to the Kibana platform. 

Advantages

1. It is open-source and thus free of cost to use.
2. Its setup is quite easy. It is very simple for a beginner to understand.
3. It is highly interactive.
4. To analyze complex data in an easy way, canvas visualization is used.

Disadvantages

1. Security issues.
2. Quite slow. The addition of plugins is also a difficult task.
3. Debugging option is not available.

Difference between Grafana and Kibana

	Grafana	Kibana
Cross-Platform Tool	It is a cross-platform tool.	It is not a cross-platform tool.
Support and Working	It supports InfluxDB, AWS, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc and its working is metrics-based.	It supports Elasticsearch and its working is log based.
Syntax	It uses a query editor.	It follows the Lucene syntax.
Full-Text Queries	It does not support full-text queries	It supports full-text queries.
Alerts	It gives real-time alerts when the data arrives. Users can define its alert visually for the important metrics.	It supports alerts but only with the help of plugins.
Usage	This tool is used by applications that require continuous real-time monitoring metrics.	This tool is used for log file analysis and full-text search queries.
Environment Variables	It is configured via the .ini file	YAML files store all the configuration details of an environment variable.
Speed	It is slow in speed.	It is fast.
Full-Text Search	It does not perform a full-text search.	It performs a full-text search.
Organizations using	9gag, Digitalocean, postmates, etc are the organizations using Grafana.	Trivago, bitbucket, Hubspot, etc are the organizations that are using Kibana.

Conclusion

Both tools have their own advantages and disadvantages and selecting a tool is completely based on the system and its requirements. Grafana is the better option to choose for applications that require constant backend support, real-time analysis, and alerts are there whereas Kibana is the best solution for firms that use the ELK stack and need powerful analysis.