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Plexus vs Grafana
Grafana is everywhere, and deservedly so: it will visualize almost any data source, the plugin ecosystem is enormous, and the open-source edition has become the default way teams look at their metrics. What it isn't is finished. You bring the storage, you build the dashboards, you write the alert rules, and you maintain all of it. Plexus is the other model: connect a device or the datastore you already run, and the starter dashboard generates itself from the first data that lands. Monitors — threshold, event, offline — ship built in, with per-monitor routing to Slack and email, and every alert keeps a timeline you can audit.
Grafana is a open-source dashboards & visualization. Grafana visualizes whatever you wire up and tune; Plexus auto-builds the fleet view from the data itself — and because both can read an existing store, plenty of teams keep Grafana for bespoke views alongside. This page is written by Plexus, so read it with that in mind — we’ve tried to be straight about where Grafana is the better choice. Last updated September 2026.
Keep Grafana for the dashboards you've lovingly built — if your metrics land in a store Plexus connects to (Postgres, TimescaleDB, MySQL, ClickHouse), the two can read the same data and you lose nothing. What changes is the starting point: with Plexus the fleet view isn't a project you build, it's the default you get on first ingest, with monitors and an alert history already attached.
Capability by capability
● full · ◐ partial · ○ not today
| Capability | Plexus | Grafana |
|---|---|---|
Bespoke dashboard-building across many data sources Grafana is the gold standard for building any dashboard across any source. Plexus dashboards are editable, but it isn't a general-purpose dashboard builder. | ◐ | ● |
Plugin and data-source ecosystem Grafana's plugin catalog is vast and mature; Plexus connects to far fewer sources today. | ○ | ● |
Run it on your own servers, for free Grafana OSS is AGPLv3 and free to run yourself. Plexus is a hosted service only. | ○ | ● |
Open-source ubiquity and ecosystem Not close, and worth being precise about: Grafana is OSI open source (AGPLv3), used by millions of people and more than 10,000 paying customers, with a vast plugin catalog. Plexus is closed source — only our Python SDK is open (Apache-2.0) — and we are far younger and connect to far fewer sources. If open-source licensing or ecosystem breadth is your requirement, Grafana wins outright. | ○ | ● |
Works out of the box (storage + dashboards + alerting, no assembly) Grafana is pieces you wire together and tune; Plexus works on connect. | ● | ○ |
Dashboards auto-generated from first ingest Grafana dashboards are hand-built or imported from templates. Plexus generates the starter dashboard from the metrics that actually land. | ● | ○ |
Built-in storage and retention (3-year raw, 5-year rollups) Grafana visualizes other stores; Plexus includes one — 3-year raw retention, 5-year hourly rollups — and can also read yours. | ● | ○ |
Offline detection and per-monitor notification routing Grafana alerting can be configured to do much of this. Plexus ships it as first-class monitors — threshold, event, offline — each with its own Slack and email routing. | ● | ◐ |
Per-alert audit trail with verdict capture Grafana keeps alert state history. Plexus keeps a full per-alert timeline plus the human verdict on whether it was real. | ● | ◐ |
Reads a datastore you already run Both read external stores — Grafana as data sources, Plexus as connections to Postgres, TimescaleDB, MySQL, or ClickHouse. | ● | ● |
When to pick which
Pick Grafana if you want to build and own bespoke dashboards across many data sources, you value the enormous plugin ecosystem, and you have the team to assemble the storage and alerting around it. For custom visualization, nothing is more flexible.
Pick Plexus if you want the fleet view without the project: dashboards that generate themselves on first ingest, monitors with routing and offline detection built in, and an audit trail on every alert — rather than wiring a store, Grafana, and alert rules together and maintaining them. You can keep Grafana for bespoke views either way.
Pricing
Plexus. Free for up to 3 devices and 7 days of history, no card. Pro is $199 a month: every device, the history you choose, alerts and sharing. 50 GB of readings included, then $0.10 per GB-month. Video is $0.50 per GB-month. No per-seat or per-host charges. See pricing
Grafana. Grafana OSS is free to self-host under AGPLv3. Grafana Cloud has a Free tier (10k active metric series, 50 GB of logs, 3 active users, 14-day retention); Pro starts at $19 a month plus usage ($6.50 per 1k series, $8 per active user); Enterprise starts at a $25,000 yearly commit. Their pricing page, read September 25, 2026.
Using both together
Point both at the same database. Plexus can connect to PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB, ClickHouse, MySQL and QuestDB, and InfluxDB partly; Grafana reads them as data sources. Keep the Grafana dashboards you've built, and use Plexus for the fleet view, device-offline alerts and alert history. Prometheus metrics can go to Plexus over remote_write as well.
Questions
How do I alert when a device goes offline in Grafana?
If you're monitoring one known device, this works well: alert on absent(your_metric), or use Grafana's No Data state, and you'll be told when it stops reporting. Where it gets hard is a fleet whose membership changes. When one series among many stops arriving, Grafana has nothing left to evaluate for that device, so the alert tends to resolve rather than fire — the series simply isn't there any more. The usual workaround is to keep a separate list of the devices you expect to be reporting and join your live query against it, so a missing device shows up as a mismatch rather than as silence. That's genuinely fiddly to maintain in alert rules, and it's the reason Plexus treats the fleet as a declared thing rather than inferring it from whatever data happens to arrive — an expected device that stops reporting is a first-class offline monitor. If you're staying on Grafana, the expected-list join is the pattern to reach for.
Is Plexus a Grafana alternative?
For a hardware fleet's day-to-day operations view, yes — Plexus ships storage, auto-generated dashboards, monitors, and alert history as one product, where Grafana is a stack you assemble. For highly custom dashboards across many data sources, Grafana's builder is still broader, and some teams keep it for exactly that.
Can I keep Grafana and still use Plexus?
Yes. If your metrics land in Postgres, TimescaleDB, MySQL, or ClickHouse, both tools can read the same store — Grafana as a data source, Plexus as a connection. You keep every dashboard you've built and add auto-generated fleet views, monitors, and alert history on top.
Does Plexus include storage, or do I still run my own?
Plexus includes storage — 3-year raw retention (7 days hot, then S3) and 5-year hourly rollups — so you don't have to stand anything up. If you already have a store Plexus supports, Plexus can also connect to it and query it live.
What does Plexus do that Grafana doesn't?
It starts finished. Dashboards generate themselves from the first data a source sends; threshold, event, and offline monitors ship built in with per-monitor Slack and email routing; every alert keeps a timeline with verdict capture; and the ⌘K terminal lets you query the fleet in plain language. With Grafana, each of those is something you build and maintain.