---
title: "AWS CloudWatch data source | Grafana Labs"
description: "Query AWS CloudWatch with a Grafana data source."
---

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

## How it works

[AWS CloudWatch data source: Query CloudWatch metrics and logs directly from Grafana](cp-olly-aws-cloudwatch-ds-light.svg "AWS CloudWatch data source: Query CloudWatch metrics and logs directly from Grafana")

Provide IAM credentials: access keys, an assumed role, or the built-in AWS integration when you run Grafana Cloud. Once connected, you can query both metrics and logs. Build a dashboard that shows EC2 CPU, Lambda invocations, and RDS connections together, all pulling live from CloudWatch. Cross-account access works through IAM role assumption, so you can see data from multiple AWS accounts in one dashboard.

## What you get

- Metrics and logs in one source
- Cross-account and cross-region
- Metric math and statistics
- Template variables
- Logs Insights queries

## Considerations

- CloudWatch API costs per query
- CloudWatch query language
- API latency affects dashboards
- Rate limits with many panels
- Alert evaluation calls the API

## Authentication options

IAM access keys, assume role, or Grafana Cloud AWS integration

## Documentation

View the [CloudWatch data source](/docs/grafana-cloud/connect-externally-hosted/data-sources/aws-cloudwatch/) documentation.