A Grafana alternative for hardware teams
Grafana is a great dashboard builder. For a team with drones, robots or sensors in the field, it’s also a project: the database, the ingest, every panel and the alerts are yours to build.
This page is written by Plexus. We’ve tried to be straight about when Grafana is the better choice.
When Grafana is still the right call
- You mostly monitor servers, services and cloud infrastructure.
- You need a data source or panel type only its plugin catalog has.
- You want to self-host for free. Grafana OSS is open source under AGPLv3.
- You already have people who build and maintain your dashboards and alert rules.
What a hardware team builds around Grafana
A database
Grafana shows data; it doesn't store it. You pick, run and pay for the time-series database underneath.
The ingest path
Something has to get readings off the device and into that database, with retries when the link drops.
Every dashboard
Each panel is written by hand or imported from a template, then kept up to date as the hardware changes.
Offline alerts for a fleet
Alerting on one device going quiet is easy. Alerting on any one of a changing fleet going quiet usually means keeping a separate list of the devices you expect.
What to look at instead
Plexus
Storage and dashboards for hardware teams. A time-series store built for machine data, ingest from the Python SDK or HTTP, a dashboard built from the first data your devices send, and alerts, including when a device goes offline. It can also read the Postgres, TimescaleDB, ClickHouse, MySQL or QuestDB you already run.
Plexus vs Grafana →Grafana on your own database
Keep Grafana and do the building yourself. The most flexible option, and free if you self-host Grafana OSS. Right when you have the people to run it.
Foxglove
For robotics teams who need to see what one robot saw on a recorded run: 3D, video and ROS data, time-synced. It's a debugging tool rather than a live fleet monitor.
Plexus vs Foxglove →InfluxDB
A purpose-built time-series database. If you want to own the store and query it directly, it's a strong choice; you still build the dashboards and alerts on top.
Plexus vs InfluxDB →Questions
Is Plexus a Grafana alternative?
For a hardware fleet, yes. Plexus includes storage, builds the first dashboard from your devices' data, and ships alerts, where Grafana is a dashboard layer you assemble a stack around. For custom dashboards across many data sources, Grafana is broader.
When should I stay on Grafana?
When you mostly monitor servers and software, when you need its plugin catalog, when you want to self-host for free, or when you already have a team maintaining your dashboards and alert rules.
Can I use Plexus and Grafana together?
Yes. If your data is in PostgreSQL, TimescaleDB, ClickHouse, MySQL or QuestDB, both can read the same database. Keep the Grafana dashboards you have and use Plexus for the fleet view and alerts.
How much does Plexus cost?
Free for up to 3 devices and 7 days of history, no card. The Founding 50 is $299 a month (normally $499) on a 6-month contract, with every device, full history, alerts and sharing. No per-seat or per-host charges.