Alternative to Grafana

Grafana has long been a favorite in the world of open source dashboarding and monitoring tools. Known for its beautiful visualizations and compatibility with a wide range of data sources, it’s helped many organizations gain valuable insights in real time. However, as business needs grow more complex, many companies are actively seeking an alternative to Grafana that offers more flexibility, customization, and enterprise features.

In this blog, we’ll explore why businesses are shifting away from Grafana, what to look for in a strong replacement, and why Helical Insight stands out as the best open source alternative to Grafana in 2025.

Why Do Businesses Need an Alternative to Grafana?

  • Limited Report Customization: Grafana is great for real-time dashboards but lacks robust reporting capabilities, especially for paginated, printable, or tabular reports.
  • Plugin and Feature Dependency: Many advanced functionalities require paid plugins or Enterprise licenses, limiting open source freedom.
  • Not Business-User Friendly: Grafana is developer-focused and lacks a self-service interface for non-technical users.
  • Lack of Automation: No native workflow engine, ETL scheduling, or complex processing capabilities.
  • Embedding Limitations: Limited white-labeling and client-facing embedding support.

What to Look for in an Alternative to Grafana

  • Open source flexibility: Full access to source code with active community support
  • Report variety: Dashboards, pixel-perfect, tabular, and infographic reports
  • Self-service BI: Drag-and-drop interface for non-developers
  • Advanced embedding: iFrame, JS API, white-labeling, and role-based views
  • Workflow automation: Built-in engine for ETL, alerts, and scheduling
  • Multi-database support: Join data from various sources seamlessly
  • User & SSO Management: Enterprise-grade security and access controls
  • Exporting & scheduling: Email bursts, CSV/PDF export, batch delivery

Helical Insight: The Best Alternative to Grafana

If you’re looking for an open source alternative to Grafana that offers advanced reporting, self-service BI, and enterprise-grade flexibility — look no further than Helical Insight. It’s not just a Grafana dashboard alternative; it’s a full-featured business intelligence platform.

Self-Service Business Intelligence

Empower business users to create:

  • Ad-hoc reports
  • Dynamic dashboards
  • Interactive infographics
  • Map-based visual analytics

Advanced Visualizations and Interactions

  • Drill-down and drill-through support
  • Inter-panel communication
  • Nested sorting and dashboard-level filtering

NLP-Based Analytics (Under Development)

Ask questions in natural language and get instant visual insights — powered by NLP and GenAI capabilities.

Pixel-Perfect Canned Reports

Generate printer-friendly, document-style reports with precise layouts and pagination.

Report Exporting and Scheduling

  • Export to PDF, Excel, CSV
  • Email scheduling and report bursting by role

White Labeling and Embedding

Embed visualizations in your SaaS or internal applications with full rebranding and customization:

  • REST APIs
  • Role-based access
  • Custom themes and UI components

Secure and Scalable

  • Supports SSO protocols
  • Browser-based, mobile, and cloud-ready
  • On-premise and Docker/Kubernetes compatible

Connect Anything, Analyze Everything

  • Supports RDBMS, NoSQL, APIs, flat files
  • Cross-database joins
  • Caching, pagination, and virtualization

Developer Friendly

  • Tech stack includes Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, Groovy, Liquid templates
  • Full control via REST APIs and code access
  • Custom workflows and visualizations possible

Flat Pricing and Community Support

  • Transparent perpetual or subscription pricing
  • Free Community Edition
  • No hidden fees for users or exports
  • Optional enterprise support from the Helical team

Whether you’re seeking a Grafana dashboard alternative or a complete open source BI platform, Helical Insight delivers unmatched customization, scalability, and business intelligence power.

Why Helical Insight is the Ideal Grafana Alternative

Feature Grafana Helical Insight
Self-Service BI Limited ✅ Full drag-and-drop UI
Pixel-perfect Reports ❌ ✅ Canned Reports
White Labeling Limited ✅ Full support
Workflow Automation Limited ✅ In-built Workflow Engine
SSO & Security Partial ✅ Multi-method SSO
Embedding APIs Yes (limited) ✅ Advanced Embedding & APIs
Developer Extensibility Moderate ✅ Extensive code & API access
Flat Pricing ❌ ✅ Transparent pricing options
Community + Enterprise Support ✅ ✅

FAQs: Alternative to Grafana

What is the best open source alternative to Grafana?

Helical Insight is considered the best open source alternative to Grafana. It offers self-service BI, canned reporting, embedding, white labeling, and enterprise-level customization capabilities.

Why should I look for a Grafana alternative?

You may need a Grafana alternative if you require pixel-perfect reports, more advanced embedding, better workflow automation, or a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.

How is Helical Insight different from Grafana?

Unlike Grafana, Helical Insight supports printable canned reports, full white labeling, cross-database joins, workflow automation, and natural language querying.

Does Helical Insight support real-time dashboards like Grafana?

Yes, Helical Insight supports real-time dashboards along with advanced visualization features like drill-down, inter-panel communication, and data-level filters.

Can Helical Insight be embedded into other applications?

Absolutely. Helical Insight provides extensive REST APIs and iFrame/JS embedding options, making it ideal for product integration and SaaS platforms.

Is there a no-code option available in Helical Insight for non-technical users?

Yes, Helical Insight has a drag-and-drop, self-service BI interface that allows business users to build dashboards and reports without writing code.

What types of reports can I create in Helical Insight?

You can create dashboards, tabular reports, pixel-perfect canned reports, map-based analytics, infographics, and more.

Is Helical Insight suitable for enterprises with complex reporting needs?

Yes, Helical Insight offers enterprise-ready features such as SSO, workflow engine, multi-tenancy, containerized deployment, and role-based access control.

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Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight’s self-service capabilities is one to reckon with. It allows you to simply drag and drop columns, add filters, apply aggregate functions if required, and create reports and dashboards on the fly. For advanced users, the self-service component has ability to add javascript, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3 and AJAX. These customizations allow you to create dynamic reports and dashboards. You can also add new charts inside the self-service component, add new kind of aggregate functions and customize it using our APIs.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
Helical Insight, via simple browser based interface of Canned Reporting module, also allows to create pixel perfect printer friendly document kind of reports also like Invoice, P&L Statement, Balance sheet etc.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
If you have a product, built on any platform like Dot Net or Java or PHP or Ruby, you can easily embed Helical Insight within it using iFrames or webservices, for quick value add through instant visualization of data.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
Being a 100% browser-based BI tool, you can connect with your database and analyse across any location and device. There is no need to download or install heavy memory-consuming developer tools – All you need is a Browser application! We are battle-tested on most of the commonly used browsers.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
We have organization level security where the Superadmin can create, delete and modify roles. Dashboards and reports can be added to that organization. This ensures multitenancy.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
A first-of-its-kind Open-Source BI framework, Helical Insight is completely API-driven. This allows you to add functionalities, including but not limited to adding a new exporting type, new datasource type, core functionality expansion, new charting in adhoc etc., at any place whenever you wish, using your own in-house developers.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
It handles huge volumes of data effectively. Caching, Pagination, Load-Balancing and In-Memory not only provides you with amazing experience, but also and does not burden the database server more than required. Further effective use of computing power gives best performance and complex calculations even on the big data even with smaller machines for your personal use. Filtering, Sorting, Cube Analysis, Inter Panel Communication on the dashboards all at lightning speed. Thereby, making best open-source Business Intelligence solution in the market.
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
With advance NLP algorithm, business users simply ask questions like, “show me sales of last quarter”, “average monthly sales of my products”. Let the application give the power to users without knowledge of query language or underlying data architecture
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application is compatible with almost all databases, be it RDBMS, or columnar database, or even flat files like spreadsheets or csv files. You can even connect to your own custom database via JDBC connection. Further, our database connection can be switched dynamically based on logged in users or its organization or other parameters. So, all your clients can use the same reports and dashboards without worrying about any data security breech.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Our application can be installed on an in-house server where you have full control of your data and its security. Or on cloud where it is accessible to larger audience without overheads and maintenance of the servers. One solution that works for all.
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered
Different companies have different business processes that the existing BI tools do not encompass. Helical Insight permits you to design your own workflows and specify what functional module of BI gets triggered