As a tool for visualizing data for time series databases, Logging & document databases, SQL, and Cloud, Grafana is a perfect choice. Its UI interface allows creating a dashboard and visualizations in minutes and analyzing the data with its help.

Despite having tons of visualizations, the open-source version of Grafana does not have advanced reporting capability. Automating the export of data into CSV, Excel, or PDF requires additional plugins.

We wrote an honest and unbiased review of the following tools that are available for exporting data directly from Grafana.

1. Grafana reporter
2. Grafana Data Exporter
3. Skedler Reports

1. Grafana Reporter

https://github.com/IzakMarais/reporter

A simple Http service that generates *.PDF reports from Grafana dashboards.

Runtime requirements

• pdflatex installed and available in PATH.
• a running Grafana instance that it can connect to. If you are using an old Grafana (version < v5.0), see Deprecated Endpoint below.

Build requirements:

• Golang

Pros of Grafana Reporter

• Simply embeddable tool for Grafana
• Uses simple curl commands and arguments

Cons of Grafana Reporter

• You need pdflatex and Golang. So you must install a Golang environment in your system.
• For non-technical users, it’s difficult to use

2. Grafana Data Exporter

https://github.com/CorpGlory/grafana-data-exporter

Server for fetching data from Grafana data sources. You would you use it:

• To export your metrics on a big range
• To migrate from one data source to another

Runtime requirements

• Linux.
• Docker

Installation

• grafana-data-exporter for fetching data from Grafana data sources.
• Simple-JSON-data source for progress tracking.
• grafana-data-exporter-panel for exporting metrics from the dashboard.
• Import exporting template dashboard at http://<YOUR_GRAFANA_URL>/dashboard/import.

Pros of Grafana Data Exporter

• Faster writing of documents
• Added as a Grafana panel

Cons of Grafana Data Exporter

• To automate the exporting of data on a periodic basis, you need to write your own cron job
• Grafana Data Exporter installation is a bit tricky for non-technical users

3. Skedler Reports

https://www.skedler.com/

Disclosure: Skedler Reports is one of our products.

Skedler offers a simple and easy to add reporting and alerting solution for Elastic Stack and Grafana. There is also a plugin for Kibana that is easy to install and use with the Elasticsearch data. It’s called Skedler Reports as Kibana Plugin.

Pros of Skedler Reports

• Simple to install, configure, and use
• Send HTML, PDF, XLS, CSV reports on-demand or periodically via email or #slack
• Report setup takes less than 5 minute
• Easy to use, no coding required

Cons of Skedler Reports

• It requires a paid license which includes software and also enterprise support
• Installation is difficult for users who are not fully familiar with Elastic Stack or Grafana

What tools do you use? 

Do you have to regularly export data from Grafana for external analysis or reporting purposes?  Do you use any other third-party tools? Email us about the tool at hello at skedler.com.