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Panels and visualizations

Visualizations

Bar chart

Grafana Cloud Enterprise Open source

Bar chart

A bar chart is a visual representation that uses rectangular bars, where the length of each bar represents each value. You can use the bar chart visualization when you want to compare values over different categories or time periods. The visualization can display the bars horizontally or vertically, and can be customized to group or stack bars for more complex data analysis.

You can use the bar chart visualization if you need to show:

Population distribution by age or location
CPU usage per application
Sales per division
Server cost distribution

Configure a bar chart

The following video shows you how to create and configure a bar chart visualization:

Give it a try using Grafana Play

With Grafana Play, you can explore and see how it works, learning from practical examples to accelerate your development. This feature can be seen on Grafana Bar Charts and Pie Charts.

Try it

Supported data formats

To create a bar chart visualization, you need a dataset containing one string or time field (or column) and at least one numeric field, though preferably more than one to make best use of the visualization.

The text or time field is used to label the bars or values in each row of data and the numeric fields are represented by proportionally sized bars.

Example 1

Group	Value1	Value2	Value3
uno	5	3	2

If you have more than one text or time field, by default, the visualization uses the first one, but you can change this in the x-axis option as described in the Bar chart options section.

Example 2

If your dataset contains multiple rows, the visualization displays multiple bar chart groups where each group contains multiple bars representing all the numeric values for a row.

Group	Value1	Value2	Value3
uno	5	3	2
dos	10	6	4
tres	20	8	2

While the first field can be time-based and you can use a bar chart to plot time-series data, for large amounts of time-series data, we recommend that you use the time series visualization and configure it to be displayed as bars.

We recommend that you only use one dataset in a bar chart because using multiple datasets can result in unexpected behavior.

Configuration options

The following section describes the configuration options available in the panel editor pane for this visualization. These options are, as much as possible, ordered as they appear in Grafana.

Panel options

In the Panel options section of the panel editor pane, set basic options like panel title and description, as well as panel links. To learn more, refer to Configure panel options.

Bar chart options

Use these options to refine your visualization.

Option	Description
X Axis	Specify which field is used for the x-axis.
Orientation	Choose from: Auto - Grafana decides the bar orientation based on the panel dimensions. Horizontal - Will make the X axis the category axis. Vertical - Will make the Y axis the category axis.
Rotate x-axis tick labels	When the graph is vertically oriented, this setting rotates the labels under the bars. This setting is useful when bar chart labels are long and overlap.
X-axis tick label max length	Sets the maximum length of bar chart labels. Labels longer than the maximum length are truncated, and appended with `...`.
X-axis labels minimum spacing	Sets the minimum spacing between x-axis labels. Depending on your choice, you can select the RTL checkbox to require space from the right side. Choose from: None - All tick marks are shown. Small - 100 px of space is required between labels. Medium - 200 px of space is required between labels. Large - 300 px of space is required between labels.
Show values	This controls whether values are shown. Values are shown on top or to the left of bars. Choose from: Auto Values will be shown if there is space. Always Always show values. Never Never show values.
Stacking	Controls bar chart stacking. Choose from: Off: Bars will not be stacked. Normal: Bars will be stacked on each other. Percent: Bars will be stacked on each other, and the height of each bar is the percentage of the total height of the stack.
Group width	Controls the width of groups. 1 = Max with, 0 = Min width.
Bar width	Controls the width of bars. 1 = Max width, 0 = Min width.
Bar radius	Controls the radius of the bars. Choose from: 0 = Minimum radius 0.5 = Maximum radius
Highlight full area on cover	Controls if the entire surrounding area of the bar is highlighted when you hover over the bar.
Color by field	Use the color value for a sibling field to color each bar value.
Line width	Controls line width of the bars.
Fill opacity	Controls the fill opacity bars.
Gradient mode	Set the mode of the gradient fill. Fill gradient is based on the line color. To change the color, use the standard color scheme field option. Gradient appearance is influenced by the Fill opacity setting.

Gradient mode

Set the mode of the gradient fill. Fill gradient is based on the line color. To change the color, use the standard color scheme field option. Gradient appearance is influenced by the Fill opacity setting. Choose from:

None - No gradient fill. This is the default setting.
Opacity - Transparency of the gradient is calculated based on the values on the y-axis. Opacity of the fill is increasing with the values on the Y-axis.
Hue - Gradient color is generated based on the hue of the line color.
Scheme - The bar receives a gradient color defined by the Standard options > Color scheme selection.
- From thresholds - If the Color scheme selection is From thresholds (by value), then each bar is the color of the defined threshold.
  Color scheme: From thresholds
- Gradient color schemes - The following image shows a bar chart with the Green-Yellow-Red (by value) color scheme option selected.
  Color scheme: Green-Yellow-Red

Tooltip options control the information overlay that appears when you hover over data points in the visualization.

When you hover your cursor over the visualization, Grafana can display tooltips. Choose how tooltips behave.

Single - The hover tooltip shows only a single series, the one that you are hovering over on the visualization.
All - The hover tooltip shows all series in the visualization. Grafana highlights the series that you are hovering over in bold in the series list in the tooltip.
Hidden - Do not display the tooltip when you interact with the visualization.

Use an override to hide individual series from the tooltip.

Values sort order

When you set the Tooltip mode to All, the Values sort order option is displayed. This option controls the order in which values are listed in a tooltip. Choose from the following:

None - Grafana automatically sorts the values displayed in a tooltip.
Ascending - Values in the tooltip are listed from smallest to largest.
Descending - Values in the tooltip are listed from largest to smallest.

Max width

Set the maximum width of the tooltip box.

Max height

Set the maximum height of the tooltip box. The default is 600 pixels.

Legend options

Legend options control the series names and statistics that appear under or to the right of the graph. For more information about the legend, refer to Configure a legend.

Option	Description
Visibility	Toggle the switch to turn the legend on or off.
Mode	Use these settings to define how the legend appears in your visualization. List displays the legend as a list. This is a default display mode of the legend. Table displays the legend as a table.
Placement	Choose where to display the legend. Bottom places the legend below the graph. Right places the legend to the right of the graph.
Width	Control how wide the legend is when placed on the right side of the visualization. This option is only displayed if you set the legend placement to Right.
Values	Choose which of the standard calculations to show in the legend. You can have more than one.

Axis

Use the following field settings to refine how your axes display.

For guidance on configuring more than one y-axis, refer to Multiple y-axes.

Some field options will not affect the visualization until you click outside of the field option box you are editing or press Enter.

Option	Description
Placement	Select the placement of the Y-axis. Choose from: Auto - Grafana automatically assigns Y-axis to the series. When there are two or more series with different units, then Grafana assigns the left axis to the first unit and right to the following units. Left - Display all Y-axes on the left side. Right - Display all Y-axes on the right side. Hidden - Hide all axes. To selectively hide axes, add a field override that targets specific fields.
Label	Set a Y-axis text label. If you have more than one Y-axis, then you can assign different labels with an override.
Width	Set a fixed width of the axis. By default, Grafana dynamically calculates the width of an axis. By setting the width of the axis, data whose axes types are different can share the same display proportions. This makes it easier to compare more than one graph’s worth of data because the axes are not shifted or stretched within visual proximity of each other.
Show grid lines	Set whether grid lines are displayed in the chart. Choose from: Auto - Grafana automatically determines whether grid lines are displayed. On - Grid lines are always displayed. Off - Grid lines are never displayed
Color	Choose whether the axis color is the Text or Series color.
Show border	Toggle the switch to hide or display the border.
Scale	Set how the y-axis is split. Choose from: Linear Logarithmic - Choose between log base 2 or log base 10. Symlog - Uses a symmetrical logarithmic scale. Choose between log base 2 or log base 10, allowing for negative values.
Centered zero	Set the y-axis so it’s centered on zero.
Soft min and soft max	Set a Soft min or soft max option for better control of Y-axis limits. By default, Grafana sets the range for the Y-axis automatically based on the dataset.

Soft min and soft max

Set a Soft min or soft max option for better control of Y-axis limits. By default, Grafana sets the range for the Y-axis automatically based on the dataset.

Soft min and soft max settings can prevent blips from turning into mountains when the data is mostly flat, and hard min or max derived from standard min and max field options can prevent intermittent spikes from flattening useful detail by clipping the spikes past a defined point.

You can set standard min/max options to define hard limits of the Y-axis. For more information, refer to Standard options definitions.

Multiple y-axes

In some cases, you might want to display multiple y-axes. For example, if you have a dataset showing both temperature and humidity over time, you might want to show two y-axes with different units for the two series.

You can configure multiple y-axes and control where they’re displayed in the visualization by adding field overrides. This example of a dataset that includes temperature and humidity describes how you can configure that. Repeat the steps for every y-axis you wish to display.

Standard options

Standard options in the panel editor pane let you change how field data is displayed in your visualizations. When you set a standard option, the change is applied to all fields or series. For more granular control over the display of fields, refer to Configure overrides.

Option	Description
Unit	Choose which unit a field should use.
Min/Max	Set the minimum and maximum values used in percentage threshold calculations or leave these field empty for them to be calculated automatically.
Field min/max	Enable Field min/max to have Grafana calculate the min or max of each field individually, based on the minimum or maximum value of the field.
Decimals	Specify the number of decimals Grafana includes in the rendered value.
Display name	Set the display title of all fields. You can use variables in the field title.
Color scheme	Set single or multiple colors for your entire visualization.
No value	Enter what Grafana should display if the field value is empty or null. The default value is a hyphen (-).

To learn more, refer to Configure standard options.

Data links

Data links allow you to link to other panels, dashboards, and external resources while maintaining the context of the source panel. You can create links that include the series name or even the value under the cursor.

For each data link, set the following options:

Title
URL
Open in new tab

To learn more, refer to Configure data links.

Value mappings

Value mapping is a technique you can use to change how data appears in a visualization.

For each value mapping, set the following options:

Condition - Choose what’s mapped to the display text and (optionally) color:
- Value - Specific values
- Range - Numerical ranges
- Regex - Regular expressions
- Special - Special values like Null, NaN (not a number), or boolean values like true and false
Display text
Color (Optional)
Icon (Canvas only)

To learn more, refer to Configure value mappings.

Thresholds

A threshold is a value or limit you set for a metric that’s reflected visually when it’s met or exceeded. Thresholds are one way you can conditionally style and color your visualizations based on query results.

For each threshold, set the following options:

Option	Description
Value	Set the value for each threshold.
Thresholds mode	Choose from Absolute and Percentage.
Show thresholds	Choose from a variety of display options including not displaying thresholds at all.

To learn more, refer to Configure thresholds.

Field overrides

Overrides allow you to customize visualization settings for specific fields or series. When you add an override rule, it targets a particular set of fields and lets you define multiple options for how that field is displayed.

Choose from the following override options:

Option	Description
Fields with name	Select a field from the list of all available fields.
Field with name matching regex	Specify fields to override with a regular expression.
Fields with type	Select fields by type, such as string, numeric, or time.
Fields returned by query	Select all fields returned by a specific query, such as A, B, or C.
Fields with values	Select all fields returned by your defined reducer condition, such as Min, Max, Count, Total.