Grafana 9.0 New Features and Improvements Overview

Grafana 9.0 focuses on improving user experience for observability and data visualization, offering new workflows that make data discovery and investigation more intuitive.

The Visual Prometheus Query Builder provides a graphical interface to construct PromQL queries, allowing users to switch between text (Code) and visual (Builder) modes, apply metric and label filters, perform mathematical operations via the + Operation button, and use an Explain mode for guided learning.

A similar visual builder is available for Loki LogQL queries, simplifying log query creation with support for label filters, parsers, and functions, while retaining the same mode‑switching capabilities.

The Explore‑to‑Dashboard workflow lets users create panels or dashboards directly from Explore, preserving complex queries without manual copying.

The new heatmap panel has been re‑architected for higher performance, handling over 200,000 data points with faster rendering and customizable color scales.

A command palette (triggered by Cmd+K or Ctrl+K) enhances productivity by enabling quick navigation, panel creation, view splitting, and theme changes.

Panel search now allows title‑based searching across multiple dashboards, streamlining panel discovery.

Trace panels can be added to dashboards for visualizing traces, currently in a testing phase.

Dashboard preview provides a summary view of all dashboards, aiding quick identification when names are insufficient.

The navigation bar has been expanded, supporting starred dashboards via the savedItems feature for easy access.

Grafana Alerting receives UI and documentation improvements, building on the changes introduced in v8.0.

For more details, see the Grafana 9.0 release notes and download page.