Grafana Cloud or run Prometheus and Grafana yourself?
Self-host gives cost control at volume; Cloud saves you the retention and HA discussion. Cloud is the right call for most SMB.
support/cloud-platforms/grafana-cloud-vs-self-hoststeps: 4
Try this first
- Count metric cardinality, not just series count
- Under a few million active series, Grafana Cloud free or pro fits
- Consider self-host only if data residency or audit demands it
- For self-host, count someone to handle long-term storage and upgrades
When to bring us in
For multi-tenant setups or strict data residency, get quotes on both paths.
See also
- Everyone logs in with the AWS root accountRoot is for emergencies and billing. Day-to-day work belongs in IAM users or SSO.
- Every developer has AdministratorAccessAdministratorAccess everywhere is convenient now, painful later. Start with role-based policies.
- Everyone has individual IAM users with their own passwordIdentity Center (formerly AWS SSO) links to your IdP and issues temporary credentials per session.
None of the above fits?
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Or skip the DIY entirely
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