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Infinity

Infinity: Query any API or file

ℹ Community plugin: Infinity is a community plugin that must be installed separately. It’s not included with Grafana by default.

What it’s for: External data including REST APIs, JSON, CSV files, XML, and GraphQL endpoints.

Trade-offs

ProsCons
Query any REST APIAPI knowledge required
Parse JSON, CSV, XMLRate limits on external APIs
Multiple auth methodsData transformation needed
No backend requiredDepends on API availability

Best for

  • Third-party APIs (GitHub, Jira, etc.)
  • CSV/JSON data files
  • Custom internal APIs
  • Data not in traditional databases

Example Uses: GitHub stats, weather data, IoT platforms, internal service APIs

Learning path

Learn to use Infinity with different data formats.

Infinity: Query JSON data

Infinity: Query CSV data

Script

Infinity is the Swiss Army knife of data sources. It connects to almost anything. One important note upfront: unlike Prometheus, Loki, and the other data sources we’ve covered, Infinity is a community plugin. You’ll need to install it separately. It doesn’t ship with Grafana by default.

But once installed, the flexibility is incredible. Got a REST API that returns JSON? Infinity can query it. CSV file somewhere accessible via URL? Infinity handles it. XML feed? GraphQL endpoint? Internal microservice? Infinity works with all of them.

Pull GitHub stats into your dashboards. Visualize data from IoT platforms. Query internal APIs that don’t have dedicated Grafana data sources. Combine external data with your metrics and logs. The plugin supports multiple authentication methods, so you can connect to secured APIs.

And it runs in Grafana without needing any backend infrastructure. If you have data somewhere that doesn’t fit the usual data source categories, Infinity is probably your answer.

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