---
title: "Key takeaways | Grafana Labs"
description: "Summary of methods for sending data to Grafana Cloud"
---

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

## Journey summary

**Six things to remember**

| \# | Takeaway                                                                                                     |
|----|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1  | **External collectors work**: Bring your own collectors, let Grafana Cloud store                             |
| 2  | **Match method to source**: Prometheus → remote write, InfluxDB → exporter, Graphite → carbon-relay-ng, etc. |
| 3  | **OpenTelemetry is universal**: OTLP works for both metrics and logs                                         |
| 4  | **HTTP API is flexible**: Any HTTP client can send logs                                                      |
| 5  | **Grafana Cloud Metrics stores metrics**: Prometheus-compatible, scalable                                    |
| 6  | **Grafana Cloud Logs stores logs**: Query with LogQL, correlate with metrics                                 |

If you’re starting fresh, Grafana recommends collecting with Grafana Alloy, or a Grafana Cloud integration for common systems. This journey is for teams sending data from existing collectors.

## Quick reference

| Your source           | Method                               | Destination            |
|-----------------------|--------------------------------------|------------------------|
| Prometheus            | Remote write                         | Grafana Cloud Metrics  |
| InfluxDB              | InfluxDB exporter or Telegraf        | Grafana Cloud Metrics  |
| Graphite              | carbon-relay-ng (native) or HTTP API | Grafana Cloud Graphite |
| OpenTelemetry metrics | OTLP endpoint                        | Grafana Cloud Metrics  |
| OpenTelemetry logs    | OTLP endpoint                        | Grafana Cloud Logs     |
| Any HTTP client       | HTTP API                             | Grafana Cloud Logs     |