Grafana vs Sentry(2026)
Grafana is better for teams that need beautiful dashboards. Sentry is the stronger choice if best error tracking dx. Grafana is freemium (from $0 (self-hosted free)) and Sentry is freemium (from $26/month).
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
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Grafana
Grafana is the open-source observability platform for metrics, logs, and traces with beautiful dashboards.
Starting at $0 (self-hosted free)
Visit GrafanaSentry
Sentry provides real-time error tracking and performance monitoring for web and mobile applications.
Starting at $26/month
Visit SentryHow Do Grafana and Sentry Compare on Features?
| Feature | Grafana | Sentry |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | $0 (self-hosted free) | $26/month |
| Dashboards | ✓ | — |
| Alerting | ✓ | — |
| Loki (logs) | ✓ | — |
| Tempo (traces) | ✓ | — |
| Mimir (metrics) | ✓ | — |
| Grafana Cloud | ✓ | — |
| Error tracking | — | ✓ |
| Performance monitoring | — | ✓ |
| Session replay | — | ✓ |
| Profiling | — | ✓ |
| Crons | — | ✓ |
| Alerts | — | ✓ |
Grafana Pros and Cons vs Sentry
G
Grafana
+Beautiful dashboards
+Open source (self-hostable free)
+Works with any data source
+Active community
−Complex to self-host
−Grafana Cloud gets expensive
−Steeper learning curve
S
Sentry
+Best error tracking DX
+Great free tier
+SDK for every language
+Session replay
−Can get expensive at scale
−Complex pricing
−Noisy alerts if not tuned
Should You Use Grafana or Sentry?
Choose Grafana if…
- •Beautiful dashboards
- •Open source (self-hostable free)
- •Works with any data source
Choose Sentry if…
- •Best error tracking DX
- •Great free tier
- •SDK for every language