Grafana is a data visualization tool developed by Grafana Labs in New York. It is available open source, managed (Grafana Cloud), or via an enterprise edition with enhanced features. Grafana has pluggable data source model and comes bundled with support for popular time series databases like Graphite. It also has built-in support for cloud monitoring vendors like Amazon Cloudwatch, Microsoft Azure and SQL databases like MySQL. Grafana can combine data from many places into a single dashboard.
$0
Pendo.io
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Pendo.io is a product engagement platform with features for in-app analytics, surveys and feedback, and guidance.
N/A
Pricing
Grafana
Pendo.io
Editions & Modules
Grafana Cloud - Pro
$8
per month up to 1 active user
Grafana Cloud - Free
Free
10k metrics + 50GB logs + 50GB traces up to 3 active users
If I was starting over on an Observability platform, Grafana would be my number 1 choice due to the flexibility and ability to act as a single platform either on its own or combining multiple data sources. The trick however, is that it can be fairly complex to learn and setup, so time is needed to make it a successful implementation. There is a level of cognitive load required
I don't think Pendo.io will be able to 100% replace our onboarding workflow, but for our new users from existing customers, we are launching onboarding guides to help that segment of new users receive more on-demand, self-service training. It is a little tricky to still figure out segments based on our app's ability to have custom user roles, and it would be great to be able to create segments based on whether a user's page has a specific button appear rather than tracking their clicks, since that will inevitably leave some users out of the segment.
Creating solutions that you actually need and want to use - no fluff.
Enabling you to adopt those solutions by providing resources and a community for continual learning and improvement.
Everyone at Pendo.io is a rockstar - A-List employees throughout the ranks who are all determined to help you succeed. I'm amazed at all the awesome people I've worked with at Pendo. In 5 years I've never had a less-than-stellar interaction with a Pendozer.
Pendo.io's Customer Support is sometimes lacking both in terms of response time and clarity/usefulness of the responses
Pendo.io's Customer API could use quite a bit of improvement, both in terms of what kind of functionality it allows but also in terms of the documentation available for it
Pendo.io's built in reporting and analysis building capabilities could be improved to allow more customization and options.
Pendo.io in-product communications (Pendo Guides) could be improved, particularly its out-of-the-box capabilities regarding customization of the interactions that they can "trigger" within the platform it is being used for and the types of "flow"/transitions it can support for walkthroughs. We use custom code (which Pendo Guides do support and that's nice) to make certain things work but it would be better to be able to do these things without it.
We have had an excellent experience with Pendo. When we've had questions or concerns, Pendo is very quick to respond and communicate with us. We have experienced top-notch customer support and customer engagement. We have actually modeled some of our implementation and product processes after Pendo's examples.
It is infinitely flexible. If you can imagine it, Grafana can almost certainly do it. Usability may be in the eye of the beholder however, as there is time needed to curate the experience and get the dashboards customized to how it makes sense to you. I know one thing they are working on are more templates, based on data sources
The design of their product is visually appealing, but I find their dashboard capabilities a tad too rudimentary. I also think their guide designs could benefit from ability to customize it a bit more and align to the look and feel of our brand.
They've been great anytime that we have needed help with something. They also have some really great help articles. We're able to figure most things out through their articles, but when we've had to call in they've been very helpful and we haven't had any problems. I'd highly recommend working with them.
The training schedule was well thought out and tailored to meet our needs. Chantelle stayed with us through the whole implementation and made sure that we were good to go.
Grafana blows Nagios out of the water when it comes to customization. The ability to feed almost any data source makes it very versatile and the cost is great.
Pendo.io doesn't try to fit every possible product management feature inside the application, rather it focuses on the user experience and analytics part. And they do that beautifully. Because they are focused on their strength so they are best in that, also their pricing is better than all the other competitors.
It has saved us tons of money on marketing. Instead of having our team spend tons of money on advertising for new products and services, we are able to connect with our customers directly in the product, which essentially is free (aside from paying for Pendo).
It has saved us tons of time by not having to do big reach outs to current customers.
It has helped a ton with churn and onboarding. We can quickly figure out which of our customers are and aren't utilizing certain key components within our software.
