Getting Started with Grafana on Scalingo

Grafana is an open-source platform for visualizing and monitoring data from various sources. It lets you create interactive dashboards with charts, graphs, and alerts. It’s commonly used for infrastructure, application and business metrics monitoring.

Planning your Deployment

Grafana requires its own database to store its configuration. We usually advise to opt at least for a PostgreSQL® Starter or Business 512 addon for this purpose.
While Grafana’s officially recommends to have a minimum of 512MB of RAM, we usually advise to have a bit more, and go with at least one L container (with 1GB of RAM) to host your Grafana instance.

Deploying

Using our One-Click Deploy Button

Click the One-Click Deploy button below to automatically deploy Grafana with your Scalingo account:

Using the Command Line

We maintain a repository called grafana-scalingo on GitHub to help you deploy Grafana on Scalingo. Here are the few additional steps you will need to follow:

Clone our repository:

git clone https://github.com/Scalingo/grafana-scalingo
cd grafana-scalingo

Create the application on Scalingo:

scalingo create my-grafana

Notice that our Command Line automatically detects the git repository, and adds a git remote to Scalingo:

git remote -v

origin   https://github.com/Scalingo/grafana-scalingo (fetch)
origin   https://github.com/Scalingo/grafana-scalingo (push)
scalingo git@ssh.osc-fr1.scalingo.com:my-grafana.git (fetch)
scalingo git@ssh.osc-fr1.scalingo.com:my-grafana.git (push)

Provision a Scalingo for PostgreSQL® Starter 512 addon:

scalingo --app my-grafana addons-add postgresql postgresql-starter-512

(optional) Instruct the platform to run the web process type in a single L container:
```
scalingo --app my-grafana scale web:1:L
```

Set a few mandatory environment variables:
These must be set with the given values:

scalingo --app my-grafana env-set GF_SERVER_HTTP_PORT=\$PORT
scalingo --app my-grafana env-set GF_PATHS_PLUGINS=/app/plugins

The following ones must be set to the appropriate values:

scalingo --app my-grafana env-set GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL=https://my-grafana.osc-fr1.scalingo.io
scalingo --app my-grafana env-set GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=<set this to whatever suits you>
scalingo --app my-grafana env-set GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=<set this to whatever suits you>

Everything’s ready, deploy to Scalingo:
```
git push scalingo master
```

Using the Terraform Provider

Start by forking our Grafana repository

Place the following block in your Terraform file to create the app:

resource "scalingo_app" "my-grafana" {
  name        = "my-grafana"
  stack_id    = "scalingo-22"
  force_https = true

  environment = {
    GF_SERVER_HTTP_PORT        = "$PORT",
    GF_PATHS_PLUGINS           = "/app/plugins",
    GF_SERVER_ROOT             = <URL OF YOUR APP>,
    GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER     = <ADMIN USER>,
    GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD = <PASSWORD FOR ADMIN USER>
  }
}

Link the app to your forked repository:

data "scalingo_scm_integration" "github" {
  scm_type = "github"
}

resource "scalingo_scm_repo_link" "default" {
  auth_integration_uuid = data.scalingo_scm_integration.github.id
  app                   = scalingo_app.my-grafana.id
  source                = "https://github.com/<username>/grafana-scalingo"
  branch                = "master"
}

Provision a Scalingo for PostgreSQL® Starter 512 addon and attach it to your app:

resource "scalingo_addon" "my-grafana-postgresql" {
  app         = scalingo_app.my-grafana.id
  provider_id = "postgresql"
  plan        = "postgresql-starter-512"
}

(optional) Instruct the platform to run the web process type in a single L container:

resource "scalingo_container_type" "web" {
  app    = scalingo_app.my-grafana.id
  name   = "web"
  size   = "L"
  amount = 1
}

Run terraform plan and check if the result looks good
If so, run terraform apply
Once Terraform is done, your Grafana instance is ready to be deployed:
1. Head to your dashboard
2. Click on your Grafana application
3. Click on the Deploy tab
4. Click on Manual deployment in the left menu
5. Click the Trigger deployment button
6. After a few seconds, your Grafana instance is finally up and running!

Updating

By default, Scalingo tries to install the latest version of Grafana.

Consequently, updating Grafana only consists in triggering a new deployment of your instance.

Using the Command Line

In your Grafana repository, create an empty commit and push it to Scalingo:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Update Grafana"
git push scalingo master

Using the Terraform Provider

Head to your dashboard
Click on your Grafana application
Click on the Deploy tab
Click on Manual deployment in the left menu
Click the Trigger deployment button
After a few seconds, your updated Grafana instance is ready!

Customizing

Adding Plugins

Grafana plugins extend its functionality by adding new data sources, visualization panels, or app integrations. They let you connect to more systems, display custom charts, or bundle dashboards with specific tools.

Adding Publicly Available Plugins

From the Grafana plugins website, identify the name of the plugins you are interested in. It’s generally available from the installation tab of the plugin.
Put these names in the GRAFANA_PLUGINS environment variable of your Grafana app.
For multiple plugins, use a comma (,) as separator. For example:
```
GRAFANA_PLUGINS="grafana-clock-panel,esnet-arcdiagram-panel"
```

Adding Private Plugins

Put your unzipped plugins in a directory named plugins, at the root of your Grafana project. The buildpack automatically picks them during deployment.

Storing Images on External Services

Grafana supports automatic rendering of panels as PNG images. This feature can be used to display images along with notifications.

To make Grafana send images on an S3 bucket, please use the following environment variables:

GF_EXTERNAL_IMAGE_STORAGE_PROVIDER=s3
GF_EXTERNAL_IMAGE_STORAGE_S3_ACCESS_KEY=<Fill this field>
GF_EXTERNAL_IMAGE_STORAGE_S3_BUCKET=<Fill this field>
GF_EXTERNAL_IMAGE_STORAGE_S3_REGION=<Fill this field>
GF_EXTERNAL_IMAGE_STORAGE_S3_SECRET_KEY=<Fill this field>

Environment

Grafana is fully configurable via environment variables.

Moreover, the buildpack makes use of the following environment variable(s). They can be leveraged to customize your deployment:

GRAFANA_VERSION
Allows to specify the Grafana version to deploy.
Defaults to the version set in the buildpack.
GRAFANA_PLUGINS
A list of plugin names to install.
Separate names with a comma.
Defaults to being empty.

Last update: 12 Aug 2025 Suggest edits