Metrics

Elastic lets you ingest, store, query, and visualize metrics from any source. Whether you're consolidating a Prometheus or Datadog stack, collecting infrastructure metrics, or sending custom application metrics, Elastic supports OpenTelemetry, Prometheus remote write, and Elastic Agent integrations from a single platform.

Send metrics to Elastic

Start here if you need to get metrics into Elastic or decide how to ingest them:

Get started with metrics: Get data flowing quickly using an Elastic OpenTelemetry quickstart for your deployment type and environment. Start here if you're evaluating Elastic or want a working pipeline before you commit to a data model.
Migrate metrics to Elastic: Move an existing Prometheus or Datadog stack to Elastic. Because Elastic accepts OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) and Prometheus remote write, you can run both systems side by side and migrate gradually.
Ingest metrics: Compare every ingest path in detail: Elastic OpenTelemetry and OTLP, Prometheus remote write, and Elastic Agent integrations, including which path is recommended for your deployment type.
Plan your metrics setup: Understand how each ingest path stores your metrics (OpenTelemetry, Elastic Common Schema (ECS), or Prometheus names) and pick the path for your deployment type before you scale up.

Work with existing metrics in Elastic

After metrics are in Elastic, use these pages to query, visualize, and control storage:

Explore metrics

Query with Elasticsearch Query Language (ES|QL) or PromQL.

Visualize your data in Kibana using Discover, the Infrastructure UI, or dashboards.

Visualize your data in Kibana using Metrics Explorer, the Infrastructure UI, or dashboards.

Manage metrics storage

Control storage costs and retention using time series data streams (TSDS), downsampling, cardinality management, and lifecycle policies.

Use Prometheus and Grafana with Elastic

Keep Prometheus scraping and add Elastic as a remote_write target. Your scrape configurations don't change. On Elastic Cloud Serverless and Elastic Cloud Hosted, send to the Managed Prometheus Remote Write endpoint. On self-managed Elastic Stack, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, and Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes, send to the Elasticsearch /_prometheus/api/v1/write endpoint.

If you use Grafana, point its Prometheus data source at Elasticsearch and keep your PromQL dashboards. Elasticsearch runs a subset of PromQL, so check each dashboard and alert rule against the PromQL limitations before you switch it over.

Use these pages to add remote write, keep Grafana, and reuse PromQL:

Ingest Prometheus metrics with the Managed Prometheus Remote Write endpoint: The recommended remote write destination on Elastic Cloud Serverless and Elastic Cloud Hosted.
Ingest Prometheus metrics with the Elasticsearch remote write endpoint: The Elasticsearch /_prometheus/api/v1/write endpoint for self-managed Elastic Stack, Elastic Cloud Enterprise, and Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes.
Use Elasticsearch as a Prometheus data source in Grafana: Point Grafana at Elasticsearch and keep your existing PromQL dashboards.
PromQL reference: Learn how Elasticsearch evaluates PromQL and which functions and constructs it supports.