---
title: "When to use the Grafana Drilldown apps | Grafana Labs"
description: "Use cases for visual data exploration"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## When to use the Grafana Drilldown apps

The Grafana Drilldown apps are designed for exploration and investigation, not permanent monitoring.

## Best use cases

- Investigate alerts and explore data immediately
- Discover what labels and fields exist in your metrics and logs
- Verify that new metrics appeared, check log fields, explore unfamiliar systems
- Understand what’s available before writing queries or building dashboards
- Share findings with engineers who don’t know query languages

## When to use something else

| If you need…          | Use                 |
|-----------------------|---------------------|
| Permanent monitoring  | Dashboards + alerts |
| Complex aggregations  | Query editor        |
| Custom visualizations | Dashboard panels    |
| Automated analysis    | Recording rules     |