Documentationbreadcrumb arrow Grafana Cloudbreadcrumb arrow Instrument and send databreadcrumb arrow Metricsbreadcrumb arrow Prometheus metricsbreadcrumb arrow Native histograms
Grafana Cloud

Send and query native histograms

You can send and query Prometheus native histogram metrics, first introduced in Prometheus 2.40, in Grafana Cloud.

Compared to classic histograms, native histograms provide advantages for metrics that require higher resolution. To learn more about these advantages, watch Prometheus Native Histograms in Production on YouTube.

Send native histograms to Grafana Cloud

For instructions on how to configure your Prometheus instance to send native histogram metrics via remote write, refer to Scrape and send native histograms with Prometheus in the Mimir documentation.

Explore native histograms with Metrics Drilldown

You can use Grafana Metrics Drilldown to automatically identify and visualize native histogram metrics without writing PromQL. With Grafana Metrics Drilldown, you can inspect native histogram distributions and compare them side by side with classic histograms.

For more information about Grafana Metrics Drilldown, including how to view or customize underlying queries for native histograms, refer to Drill down your metrics.

Migrate from classic to native histograms

You can migrate from classic to native histograms or monitor both data types concurrently. Follow these best practices for migration:

  • For business-critical metrics, consider sending both classic histogram and native histogram data types.
  • For non-business-critical metrics, consider sending native histograms only.

For more information on how to migrate from classic to native histograms, refer to Migrate from classic histograms in the Mimir documentation.