Plugin management

Plugins enhance your Grafana experience with new ways to connect to and visualize data.

Read on for an overview on how to get started with plugins:

• Plugins are available in the plugin catalog. They can be built by Grafana Labs, commercial partners, our community, or you can build a plugin yourself.
• There are three types of plugins: panel, data source, and app plugins.
• Learn how to install, update and verify your plugins.

Advanced options allow you to:

• Customize where app plugin pages appear in the navigation menu.
• Configure backend communication between installed plugins.
• Improve security by isolating plugins with the Plugin Frontend Sandbox.

Types of plugins

Grafana supports three types of plugins:

• Panels - These plugins make it easy to create and add any kind of visualization, to show your data, or improve your favorite dashboards.
• Data sources - These plugins allow you to pull data from various data sources such as databases, APIs, log files, and so on, and display it in the form of graphs, charts, and dashboards in Grafana.
• Apps - These plugins enable the bundling of data sources, panels, dashboards, and Grafana pages into a cohesive experience.

Read more in Types of plugins.

Access the Plugin catalog

You can install and manage plugins from within Grafana. You need to have a Grafana Server administrator or Organization administrator role to access and use the plugin catalog. For more information about Grafana roles and permissions, refer to Roles and permissions.

For app plugins, the following access rules apply:

• If you are an Org Admin, you can configure app plugins, but you can't install, uninstall, or update them.
• If you are a Server Admin, you can't configure app plugins, but you can install, uninstall, or update them.
• If you are both Org Admin and Server Admin, you can configure app plugins and also install, uninstall, or update them.

Browse plugins

To browse for available plugins:

1. While logged into Grafana as an administrator, click Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins in the side menu to view installed and available plugins.
2. Use the search box to filter based on name, keywords, organization and other metadata.
3. Click the Data sources, Panels, or Applications buttons to filter by plugin type.

If you're not logged in, you can also access the list of available plugins in the Plugin catalog.

Manage your plugins

We strongly recommend running the latest plugin version. Use Grafana Advisor to check the status of your data sources and plugins.

Install a plugin

The most common way to install a plugin is through the Grafana UI.

1. In Grafana, click Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins in the side navigation menu to view all plugins.
2. Browse and find a plugin.
3. Click the plugin's logo.
4. Click Install.

{{< admonition type="note" >}} To see additional ways to install plugins refer to Install a plugin. {{< /admonition >}}

Update a plugin

To update a plugin:

1. In Grafana, click Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins in the side navigation menu to view all plugins.
2. Click the Installed filter to show only installed plugins.
3. Click the plugin's logo.
4. Click Update.

When the update is complete, a confirmation message will indicate the installation was successful.

Uninstall a plugin

To uninstall a plugin:

1. In Grafana, click Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins in the side navigation menu to view all plugins.
2. Click the plugin's logo.
3. Click the Installed filter to show only installed plugins.
4. Click Uninstall.

When the update is complete, a confirmation message will indicate the installation was successful.

Verify your plugins

Plugin signature verification, also known as signing, is a security measure to make sure plugins haven't been tampered with. Upon loading, Grafana checks to see if a plugin is signed or unsigned. Read more in Plugin signatures.

Advanced options

Customize navigation placement of plugin pages

You can relocate app plugin pages to customize the navigation menu structure, as explained in Customize navigation placement of plugin pages.

Allow plugin backend communication

You can configure your Grafana instance to let the frontends of installed plugins directly communicate locally with the backends of other installed plugins. See how in Configure backend communication between installed plugins.

Isolate plugin code with the Frontend Sandbox

You can use the Plugin Frontend Sandbox to securely isolate plugin frontend code from the main Grafana application.

When enabled, plugins run in a separate JavaScript context, which provides several security benefits:

• Prevents plugins from modifying parts of the Grafana interface outside their designated areas
• Stops plugins from interfering with other plugins functionality
• Protects core Grafana features from being altered by plugins
• Prevents plugins from modifying global browser objects and behaviors

Learn more

• Browse available plugins
• Develop your own plugins
• Reach out to the plugin development Community

To administer, update, or delete your plugins, or to submit a new plugin, sign in to the Plugins Admin page. Note that you need to be an administrator for the Grafana Cloud organization being used to publish the plugin.