Grafana
Semrush
| Feature | Grafana | Semrush |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $29/mo | Free / from $139.95/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Best For | devops-teams, sre-teams, data-engineers, iot-monitoring | digital-marketers, agencies, enterprise, ppc-managers |
| Founded | 2014 | 2008 |
| Dashboards | ✓ | ✗ |
| Data Sources | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alerting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Annotations | ✓ | ✗ |
| Plugins | ✓ | ✗ |
| Loki Logs | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tempo Traces | ✓ | ✗ |
| Mimir Metrics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Keyword Research | ✗ | ✓ |
| Site Audit | ✗ | ✓ |
| Rank Tracking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Competitor Analysis | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ppc Tools | ✗ | ✓ |
| Content Marketing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Social Media | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ Semrush Pros
- Most comprehensive marketing toolkit
- Excellent PPC and advertising tools
- Content marketing platform included
- Social media management built-in
✗ Semrush Cons
- Very expensive for small businesses
- Interface can feel overwhelming
- Some data less accurate for non-US markets
The Verdict
Grafana is built for devops teams and sre teams, with a focus on dashboards and data-sources. Semrush targets digital marketers and agencies and leads with keyword-research and site-audit.
On pricing, Grafana is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $29/mo compared to $139.95/mo for Semrush. That $110.94999999999999/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.
Feature-wise, Grafana offers broader built-in capabilities (8 features vs 7), while Semrush takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.