Import Grafana dashboards
Export any dashboard from Grafana as JSON and import it into Plexus: panel layout carries over, panel types are mapped to their Plexus equivalents, and each Grafana datasource is pointed at one of your connections, so its panels run their original queries against your own database. Free on every plan.
Deciding between the two, or running both? See Plexus vs Grafana.
Export from Grafana
In Grafana: dashboard → Share → Export → Save to file (or copy the JSON).
Raw API responses work too — Plexus accepts bare dashboard JSON, grafana.com
downloads, and GET /api/dashboards/uid/… wrappers as-is.
Import
- Open Dashboards in Plexus and choose Migrate → Import from Grafana.
- Drop the export file, click to browse for it, or choose or paste the JSON. Click Parse dashboard. Nothing is created yet.
- Check the Import report. Every panel in the file is listed as either mapped (with its Plexus panel type) or skipped, with the reason.
- Under Connections, pick one of your connections for each Grafana datasource. Plexus offers the connections of the matching type and picks it for you when there is exactly one. If you have none, Connect adds one without leaving the import. Panels on a datasource you connect keep their original query and run it against that connection. If a panel has several queries, the first one is used. Panels on a datasource you leave at Don't connect import empty, and you set their data in the panel editor later.
- Click Create dashboard. The dashboard opens with the original's layout. Both grids are 24 columns wide, so columns and widths carry over, and heights are scaled to Plexus rows.
Datasources are matched to PostgreSQL, TimescaleDB, ClickHouse, MySQL and InfluxDB connections. Plexus has no Prometheus connection, so panels on a Prometheus datasource import empty. Queries built with Grafana's visual InfluxDB builder have no query text; Plexus rebuilds them as Flux where it can.
Prefer the terminal? Your coding agent can do the same import through the Plexus MCP server. See Change dashboards with your coding agent.
How panels map
| Grafana | Plexus |
|---|---|
| timeseries / graph | line (bars → bar, points → scatter, filled → area; a stacked area stays stacked) |
| stat / singlestat / gauge / bargauge | stat |
| table | table |
| heatmap | line (Plexus has no heatmap panel) |
| logs | logs |
| alertlist | alerts |
| piechart / barchart | bar |
| text | skipped (it has no query) |
| row | skipped as a panel; the panels inside it are imported |
| anything else | line if it has a query, otherwise skipped |
What carries over, and what doesn't
- Template variables. Constant, text box and custom variables carry over. A query variable carries over as plain text holding its last value. Other kinds are not imported, and the import report names them.
- Units carry over for common ones (volts, amps, temperatures, percentages, bytes and similar). A unit Plexus doesn't recognise is dropped rather than guessed.
- Time range carries over when it is relative, like the last 6 hours.
- Thresholds are not imported. Alerting in Plexus comes from monitors, not panel settings. Monitors need Pro.
- Field overrides, transformations and panel links are not imported.
- Imports cap at 100 panels; anything beyond that is listed as skipped.