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Grafana Labs

Open-source observability platform for metrics, logs and traces — a Swedish alternative to Datadog.

Overview

Grafana Labs is a Stockholm, Sweden-based European company building developer tools, monitoring, and open source software since 2014. As an EU-headquartered provider, Grafana Labs operates under GDPR and is outside the reach of the US CLOUD Act, making it a privacy-friendly alternative to GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers for European teams.

Why European teams pick Grafana Labs

Teams in Europe pick Grafana Labs when they want a developer tools provider that bills in EUR, supports their local data-protection officer requirements, and keeps customer data under Sweden law, operating since 2014. Compared with GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers, Grafana Labs avoids cross-border data transfers under Schrems II and the US CLOUD Act, which is often the deciding factor for European procurement and legal teams.

See more EU developer tools tools or browse other startups from Sweden.

About

Grafana Labs is a Swedish company that develops and maintains the Grafana open-source observability stack — Grafana (dashboards), Loki (log aggregation), Tempo (distributed tracing), and Mimir (metrics) — plus the managed Grafana Cloud service. Originally open-source and community-driven, Grafana has become the de facto standard for infrastructure and application observability. Grafana Cloud offers an EU-hosted region with GDPR-compliant data processing and a signed DPA. The entire stack is open-source and self-hostable on EU infrastructure — a popular choice for teams running Prometheus-based monitoring on Hetzner or OVHcloud. Grafana Labs was founded in Stockholm and retains strong EU engineering roots despite now having a global presence.

Details

Founded
2014
Headquarters
Stockholm, Sweden

Other EU startups like Grafana Labs

  • FjordIDNorway Managed OIDC/OAuth2 identity platform hosted on Hetzner in Germany. Drop-in Auth0 replacement with EU data residency and zero US subprocessors.
  • RailwayUnited Kingdom Instant deployment infrastructure for developers — popular across European teams.
  • LiveblocksFrance APIs for adding collaborative real-time features to your app — a French alternative to Firebase Realtime.
  • PocketbaseBulgaria Open-source backend in a single file — a European alternative to Firebase.
  • NocoDBGermany Open-source Airtable alternative that turns databases into smart spreadsheets.
  • BaserowNetherlands Open-source no-code database and Airtable alternative — built in the Netherlands.

Frequently asked questions

What is Grafana Labs?

Grafana Labs is a Swedish company that develops and maintains the Grafana open-source observability stack — Grafana (dashboards), Loki (log aggregation), Tempo (distributed tracing), and Mimir (metrics) — plus the managed Grafana Cloud service. Originally open-source and community-driven, Grafana has become the de facto standard for infrastructure and application observability. Grafana Cloud offers an EU-hosted region with GDPR-compliant data processing and a signed DPA. The entire stack is open-source and self-hostable on EU infrastructure — a popular choice for teams running Prometheus-based monitoring on Hetzner or OVHcloud. Grafana Labs was founded in Stockholm and retains strong EU engineering roots despite now having a global presence.

What does Grafana Labs do?

Grafana Labs is open-source observability platform for metrics, logs and traces — a swedish alternative to datadog. It is listed under developer tools, monitoring, and open source on EU Alts because its core functionality serves teams looking for a European developer tools tool with EU data residency, typically as a switch away from GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers.

Is Grafana Labs a good European developer tools alternative?

Grafana Labs is a fit for European businesses evaluating developer tools options where data residency and GDPR alignment matter — typical buyers include EU-based SaaS teams, public-sector projects, regulated industries (healthcare, finance, legal), and any organisation that needs to demonstrate that customer data does not leave the EU. It also overlaps with monitoring and open source use cases.

Is Grafana Labs GDPR compliant?

Grafana Labs is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and falls under EU jurisdiction, so it processes user data under the GDPR by default. Customer data processing is supervised by Sweden's data protection authority, the Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten (IMY). Because the company is not US-incorporated, it is not subject to the US CLOUD Act — meaning US authorities cannot compel Grafana Labs to disclose customer data the way they can with GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers. For European buyers, that often simplifies DPIA paperwork and standard contractual clauses.

How do teams switch from GitHub to Grafana Labs?

Most teams move to Grafana Labs from GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers because they want EU data residency without giving up the core developer tools workflow. Grafana Labs's Sweden base means a single jurisdiction for both the company and (typically) its hosting infrastructure, so you can drop Schrems II transfer impact assessments for this part of your stack. Plan the migration in stages: export your data from the US incumbent, pilot Grafana Labs with a small team, then move the rest once the integration coverage you need is confirmed.

Where is Grafana Labs based?

Grafana Labs is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company was founded in 2014. Its main website is https://grafana.com.