---
title: "Integrations vs. data sources | Grafana Labs"
description: "The key trade-off to understand"
---

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

## Integrations vs. data sources

[Integrations vs Data Source Connections comparison](integrations-vs-data-sources-1.svg "Integrations vs Data Source Connections comparison")

## When to use each

| Use integrations when…                      | Use data sources when…                       |
|---------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------|
| You want fast time-to-value                 | You already have monitoring infrastructure   |
| You need pre-built alerts and dashboards    | Compliance requires data to stay on-premises |
| You want Machine Learning insights and SLOs | You just need visualization of existing data |

> **The key insight:** Data source connections give you visualization. Integrations give you the full Grafana Cloud platform.