Grafana
Rows
| Feature | Grafana | Rows |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $29/mo | Free / from $59/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
| Best For | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring | data-analysts, marketers, startups, growth-teams |
| Founded | 2014 | 2016 |
| Dashboards | ✓ | ✗ |
| Data Sources | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alerting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Annotations | ✓ | ✗ |
| Plugins | ✓ | ✗ |
| Loki Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tempo Traces | ✓ | ✗ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrations | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ai Assistant | ✗ | ✓ |
| Charts | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sharing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Templates | ✗ | ✓ |
| Api Connections | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ Rows Pros
- Built-in data integrations
- Modern clean interface
- Powerful AI features
- Great for data analysis
✗ Rows Cons
- Limited free plan
- Smaller community
- Some integrations require paid plan
The Verdict
Grafana is built for devops teams and sre teams, with a focus on dashboards and data-sources. Rows targets data analysts and marketers and leads with integrations and ai-assistant.
On pricing, Grafana is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $29/mo compared to $59/mo for Rows. That $30/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Grafana edges out on user ratings (4.6 vs 4.2). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Feature-wise, Grafana offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 6), while Rows takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Bottom line: Grafana has a slight overall edge — but if built-in data integrations matters most to you, Rows may still be the right call.