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CloudWatch

CloudWatch: Native AWS monitoring

What it’s for: AWS resources including EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3, ECS, and 200+ other AWS services.

Trade-offs

ProsCons
Native AWS integrationPer-query costs
All AWS services coveredAWS-only
No agents to deployAWS auth configuration required
Automatic resource discoveryRate limits

Best for

  • AWS infrastructure monitoring
  • Services only available via CloudWatch
  • Quick visibility into AWS resources

Cost Tip: Monitor your CloudWatch API costs. Frequent dashboard refreshes = more queries = higher bills.

Documentation

View the full documentation. Learning path coming soon!

CloudWatch data source

Script

If you’re running infrastructure on AWS, CloudWatch is your built-in monitoring service. Every AWS resource (EC2 instances, RDS databases, Lambda functions, S3 buckets) automatically publishes metrics to CloudWatch. No agents to deploy, but you will need to configure AWS authentication in Grafana.

The CloudWatch data source brings all that data into Grafana. You can visualize EC2 CPU alongside RDS connections alongside Lambda invocations, bringing all the AWS operational data into your Grafana dashboards.

One important note: CloudWatch charges per API call. Every time a dashboard panel refreshes, that’s a query. Ten panels refreshing every 30 seconds adds up. Monitor your CloudWatch costs, especially on frequently-viewed dashboards.

But for AWS visibility without deploying additional collection agents, CloudWatch is the straightforward path.

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