Start with Grafana Cloud (open-source foundations, managed)
Grafana Cloud runs Prometheus (metrics), Loki (logs), and Tempo (traces) as managed services. You keep data portability with PromQL/LogQL/TraceQL and can always fall back to self-hosted. The free tier (10K active series, 50GB logs) covers small production environments.
- Recommendation: Grafana Cloud
Recommended starting points
Based on your constraints, these products typically fit best. Read each decision brief to confirm pricing behavior and limits match your reality.
Grafana Cloud
Managed observability on open-source foundations (Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, Tempo). Metrics via PromQL, logs via LogQL, traces via TraceQL. Free tier: 10K active series, 50GB logs/month.
Why this recommendation
Grafana Cloud runs Prometheus (metrics), Loki (logs), and Tempo (traces) as managed services. You keep data portability with PromQL/LogQL/TraceQL and can always fall back to self-hosted. The free tier (10K active series, 50GB logs) covers small production environments.