Prometheus remote write

What it’s for: Teams already running Prometheus who want Grafana Cloud’s managed storage without changing their collection setup.

Prometheus remote write is a built-in Prometheus feature that forwards metrics to a remote storage endpoint in real-time.

Trade-offs

Best for: Teams already running Prometheus who want managed long-term storage

Pros	Cons
Native to Prometheus (no extra tools)	Requires Prometheus (not for other collectors)
Simple configuration (just add a remote_write block)	One-way: Grafana Cloud can’t scrape for you
Real-time forwarding as metrics are scraped	Needs authentication credentials configured
Your existing setup stays unchanged

Learning path

Configure Prometheus remote write step by step.

Prometheus remote write

If you’re already running Prometheus, remote write is the native way to send metrics to Grafana Cloud. It’s built into Prometheus itself and no additional tools are required.

Remote write is a Prometheus feature that forwards metrics to a remote storage endpoint as they’re collected. You configure it in your Prometheus configuration file by specifying the Grafana Cloud Mimir endpoint and your authentication credentials. Once configured, Prometheus sends every metric it scrapes to Grafana Cloud in real-time.

The beauty of this approach is that nothing changes about how you collect metrics. Your existing scrape configs, recording rules, and alerts all stay the same. Prometheus continues to work exactly as before. It just now has a second destination for its data.

This is the simplest path if you’re on Prometheus. You get Grafana Cloud’s scalable storage and long-term retention without changing your collection setup.

Prometheus remote write