Closed Free Tools: Grafana and InfluxDB

[pixkit]

Here's another toolset I'd like to recommend to my kababayans: Grafana and InfluxDB. Again, I'm a big proponent of modern tools, free, open-source and industry-tested and recommended solutions.

What is Grafana?

It's an open source tool for monitoring and graphing metrics and analytics. It has numerous integration points with multiple providers. Just take a look at the plugins available here at You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now..

What is InfluxDB?

It's a scalable, open source database for time-series data. What are example of time series data? Metrics, logs, Internet of Things (IoT) output and etc.

Where can we get them?

• Get Grafana at You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.
• Get InfluxDB at You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. (there's more in this link than just InfluxDB)
• Alternative admin UI for InfluxDB You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.

If you are into Docker which I highly advise, go to DockerHub and you will find free Docker images ready to be used.

Why Grafana?
If you're software developer, you should know how important metrics, monitoring, and visualization are.

Why InfluxDB?
Not everything can be solved efficiently with MySQL or SQL Server. In fact for time series data, InfluxDB is hands down way easier to use that MySQL or SQL Server.

I'm attaching photos of my side projects which are currently using these tools:

1. I have a cluster of Raspberry PIs where I am monitoring the ambient temperature, pressure, and humidity via a NodeMcu microcontroller (bottom right of the photo). The MCU is programmed via Python. It makes a POST requests to a NodeJs backend
2. The NodeJs backend is hosted inside the Raspberry PI Zero (upper right on the photo). This app submits the data it receives to a Kafka cluster (this an entirely different topic) and to InfluxDB (you can replace this part with MySQL but WHY suffer the pain)
3. Then I have Grafana dashboard running that's using InfluxDB as its datasource. Setting up the charts is really easy with Grafana

 

[kje999]

Nice.. Ganda po. Keep Sharing.

 

[espigi]

paps can i ask, for what purpose yung project mo paps?

 

[pixkit]

paps can i ask, for what purpose yung project mo paps?

Mainly for exploration purposes but also for gathering intel for possible production usage at work. Secondary reason is home automation and machine learning for personal benefit.