Grafana
Heap
| Feature | Grafana | Heap |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $29/mo | Free only |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring | product-teams, growth-teams, ux-researchers, data-analysts |
| Founded | 2014 | 2013 |
| Dashboards | ✓ | ✗ |
| Data Sources | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alerting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Annotations | ✓ | ✗ |
| Plugins | ✓ | ✗ |
| Loki Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tempo Traces | ✓ | ✗ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Auto Capture | ✗ | ✓ |
| Retroactive Analytics | ✗ | ✓ |
| Session Replay | ✗ | ✓ |
| Journey Mapping | ✗ | ✓ |
| Funnels | ✗ | ✓ |
| Retention | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Grafana Pros
- Connects to virtually any data source
- Beautiful and highly customizable dashboards
- Open-source with massive community
- Grafana Cloud includes Loki, Tempo, and Mimir
- Alerting across all data sources
✗ Grafana Cons
- Self-hosting requires DevOps expertise
- Dashboard creation has a learning curve
- Plugin quality varies
✓ Heap Pros
- Auto-capture all events
- No code required for tracking
- Retroactive analysis possible
- Session replay included
✗ Heap Cons
- Expensive at scale
- Can be data-overwhelming
- Slower than event-based tools
The Verdict
Grafana is built for devops teams and sre teams, with a focus on dashboards and data-sources. Heap targets product teams and growth teams and leads with auto-capture and retroactive-analytics.
Heap uses custom enterprise pricing, while Grafana starts at $29/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Grafana offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 6), while Heap takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Bottom line: Grafana has a slight overall edge — but if auto-capture all events matters most to you, Heap may still be the right call.