Built-in datasources tour

This page is a quick orientation to the built-in datasource plugins. Each gets a paragraph or two — for deep dives, follow the source links.

Time-series and metrics

Prometheus

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/prometheus/ (also has a packages/grafana-prometheus/ workspace).
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/prometheus/.
• The most-used datasource. Supports instant + range queries, recording rules, exemplars, and Mimir/Cortex extensions.
• Has a rich visual query builder ("Code"/"Builder" tabs) and a metrics browser modal.

Graphite

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/graphite/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/graphite/.
• The original datasource, dating back to 2013. Function chain query builder.

InfluxDB

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/influxdb/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/influxdb/.
• Supports v1 (InfluxQL), v2 (Flux), and v3 (SQL/Flux). Each version has its own query mode in the UI.

OpenTSDB

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/opentsdb/ and pkg/tsdb/opentsdb/.

Logs

Loki

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/loki/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/loki/.
• LogQL queries with logs/metrics modes. Includes log-volume side panel, live tail, and label browser. Heavy use of streaming via Live channels.

Traces

Tempo

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/tempo/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/tempo/.
• TraceQL editor, search, service graph, traces-to-logs/metrics correlation. The frontend datasource.ts is one of the largest TS files in the repo (~1,600 lines).

Jaeger

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/jaeger/, pkg/tsdb/jaeger/.

Zipkin

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/zipkin/, pkg/tsdb/zipkin/.

Profiling

Pyroscope

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/grafana-pyroscope-datasource/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/grafana-pyroscope-datasource/.
• Continuous profiling. Renders into the flamegraph panel.

Parca

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/parca/, pkg/tsdb/parca/.

Cloud monitoring

CloudWatch

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/cloudwatch/, pkg/tsdb/cloudwatch/.
• AWS CloudWatch metrics, logs, and X-Ray. Supports Metrics Insights, Logs Insights, and cross-account/region queries.

Azure Monitor

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/azuremonitor/, pkg/tsdb/azuremonitor/.
• Metrics, Logs, Application Insights, Resource Graph, traces.

Cloud Monitoring (Google Cloud)

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/, pkg/tsdb/cloud-monitoring/.

SQL

All four use @grafana/sql for the shared visual builder.

MySQL / MSSQL / PostgreSQL

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/mysql/, mssql/, grafana-postgresql-datasource/.
• Backend: corresponding folders under pkg/tsdb/.
• All three share the SQL engine (sqleng) helpers for row-to-frame conversion, time formatting, and macros. Per-dialect overrides handle quoting and time SQL.

Internal / test

TestData

• Frontend + backend: public/app/plugins/datasource/grafana-testdata-datasource/, pkg/tsdb/grafana-testdata-datasource/.
• Synthesizes data for tests and demos: random walks, predictable signals, CSV upload.

"-- Grafana --" datasource

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/grafana/.
• Backend: pkg/tsdb/grafanads/.
• Built-in queries: random walk, dashboard list, annotation list. Always present.

Mixed

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/mixed/.
• Lets a single panel pull from multiple datasources at once. Each row in the query editor selects its own source.

Dashboard

• Frontend: public/app/plugins/datasource/dashboard/.
• Reuses another panel's results as the data source for a new panel (chained transformations).

__expr__

• Backend: pkg/expr/.
• The expression engine surfaced as a fake datasource so it can ride the same query orchestration pipeline as real data sources.

See also

• Datasource plugins (shape)
• Backend / TSDB