Honeycomb vs. Grafana
See why teams are making the switch from Grafana to Honeycomb—and decide if we’re the best choice for you.
Key differences
Faster debugging
In Grafana, system-wide analysis is limited and telemetry exploration (across traces, logs, frontend, etc.) is separated, which slows down debugging. In Honeycomb, all data types are accessed through the same query builder and analysis tools for fast answers.
Powerful, context-rich SLOs
Grafana provides metrics-based SLOs and alerts, which retain no context on the details or severity of an incident. Honeycomb’s SLOs are event-based, powering high-fidelity alerts and prioritization that give teams insight into the “why” for faster issue resolution.
Built for scalability
Grafana Cloud’s pricing penalizes you by charging per byte, per time series, by headcount for some feature access, and by query size past certain allowance, limiting large teams. Honeycomb’s pricing is event-based, including unlimited custom context and querying at no cost.
 |  |
|---|---|
| One single source of truth | |
Wide events unify context on a singular debugging workflow. | Logs, metrics, traces, network, and frontend signals stored and explored separately. |
| Unrestricted analysis and parsing of highly specific values | |
Fast querying with unlimited cardinality and high dimensionality included on all events. | Fast answers require storing custom fields as dedicated columns or generating costly metrics. |
| Faster debugging with context | |
Detects hidden outliers across known and unknown contextual attributes through wide analysis. | To retrieve important context, cycle between separate data sources and context stored in separate formats. |
| Easy pattern detection on unknowns | |
Query across all fields instantly without specific knowledge. Find patterns behind any granular attribute. | Complex analysis is siloed to Parquet and PromQL experts and restricted within each telemetry type. |
| Actionable alerts with accurate service level objectives (SLOs) | |
Raw event-based SLOs give teams insight into the underlying “why.” | Grafana’s new SLOs are aggregated from streamed events or metrics, and do not retain full context. |
| Designed for engineering efficiency and collaboration | |
Teams enjoy collaborative usage and visibility, and AI assistance to unite on one workflow. | Instances, resourcing, and user environments can get fragmented, slowing collaboration. |
| Real user monitoring with full stack analysis | |
Going beyond RUM, Honeycomb gives engineers the depth to quickly isolate relevant details impacting users. | Grafana and Honeycomb both offer RUM dashboards and capabilities. |
Migration made easy
Making the switch to Honeycomb is stress-free. In fact, we’ll be here to make it all as effortless, seamless, and painless as possible.
Docs
Read everything you need to know for getting started with Honeycomb.
Resources
Dive into our resources for help observing, debugging, and improving your systems.
Customer support
Our team of support engineers is on deck as your trusted partner in observability.
What our customers say
After years in engineering feeling like I was missing critical insights, with our switch to Honeycomb, suddenly, it’s like I have sight for the first time in my career.
Pawel Malon
Principal Software Engineer, Phorest
We rely on Honeycomb to provide the world-class scale and resilience LaunchDarkly customers expect.
Edith Harbaugh
Co-founder and CEO, LaunchDarkly
We’re able to bring a different mentality in the way we run and manage our production systems. We were able to really help our engineering teams and change the culture.
Rich Anakor
Chief Solutions Architect, Vanguard
People ask, ‘Where’s Honeycomb in the new architecture?’ The answer is it’s everywhere. It’s built in.
Nick Herring
Technical Director of Infrastructure, CCP Games
We have predictable pricing that lets us do away with the legacy approach of sampling logs to preserve budget. Honeycomb’s event-based pricing empowers us to see every request from every service that comes through.
Michael Garski
Director of Platform Engineering, Fender
