Slide 2 of 6

What are the Grafana Drilldown apps?

What are the Grafana Drilldown apps?

Grafana Drilldown apps are queryless exploration interfaces that let you investigate metrics and logs visually without writing queries.

Note

This course applies to both Grafana Cloud and self-managed Grafana (version 11.6 or later).

Drilldown interface overview

The Grafana Drilldown apps suite

The Grafana Drilldown apps include four tools for exploring different telemetry signals. This course covers the two Level 1 infrastructure signals:

ToolWhat it exploresUnderlying query languageCovered in this course
Metrics DrilldownPrometheus-compatible metricsPromQL✓ Yes
Logs DrilldownLoki logsLogQL✓ Yes
Traces DrilldownTempo tracesTraceQLLevel 2 course
Profiles DrilldownPyroscope profiling data—Level 2 course

Metrics and logs are typically available immediately in most environments: from integrations, cloud providers, or existing infrastructure monitoring. Traces and profiles require application instrumentation and represent application-level observability, which we’ll cover in a separate Level 2 course.

Core capabilities

  • Navigate data hierarchies using labels and fields
  • Filter by metadata without query syntax
  • Visualize time series and log patterns automatically
  • Add findings directly to dashboards

Script

Picture this: you notice something unusual in a dashboard. CPU usage is high, but which service is responsible? Where should you start investigating?

That’s what Grafana Drilldown apps do. They’re queryless exploration interfaces in Grafana that let you investigate metrics and logs visually. No PromQL or LogQL required.

The Grafana Drilldown suite includes four apps: Grafana Metrics Drilldown, Grafana Logs Drilldown, Grafana Traces Drilldown, and Grafana Profiles Drilldown. This course covers the first two (metrics and logs) because they’re Level 1 infrastructure signals that most teams have available immediately.

Traces and profiles require application instrumentation and represent Level 2 observability capabilities. We’ll cover those in a separate course focused on application performance.

All Drilldown apps work the same way. You navigate, filter, and visualize your data through point-and-click actions. When you find something worth tracking, you can add it to a dashboard with one click.

/
Previous Next