If you've been working with Paessler PRTG for a while, you might remember the excitement back in 2017. A GitHub user named Jason Lashua - alias neuralfraud - had built something genuinely clever: a Grafana® -PRTG datasource plugin that let you pull PRTG data source data directly into Grafana® dashboards. For free. On GitHub. It was one of those open-source moments that made the community buzz.
And honestly? It was impressive for its time. You could visualize your network monitor data with real-time graphs, build a Grafana® dashboard showing LAN and WAN status, and even annotate sensors to display messages right on your panels. The Grafana® plugin supported JSON queries against the PRTG API, worked on Linux environments, and gave IT admins something they'd been asking for: a proper Grafana® integration for their monitoring data. A lot of people spent hours getting it running - and when it worked, it really worked.
Want to see what modern PRTG monitoring looks like before reading on?
But here's the thing. The developer himself stated on the wiki - as early as October 2017 - that he was no longer actively maintaining the project. The last actual release, version 4.0.4, dropped in October 2019. Since then? Nothing. Grafana® Labs has pushed through multiple major releases, all the way to Grafana 11. Issues piled up on GitHub - currently sitting at 97 open tickets with no pull requests in sight. Authentication problems, time zone mismatches, Docker compatibility issues, API key handling headaches, and troubleshooting dead ends. In our Paessler Knowledge Base we even added a quiet warning: this article is out of date.
So if you've been wrestling with the old Grafana® -PRTG plugin trying to get your PRTG server data into a working Grafana® data source, you're not alone. And you're not doing anything wrong. The PRTG plugin simply isn't fit for purpose anymore. Grafana® and PRTG both evolved. The community tool didn't.
The world moved on. And so did Paessler.
Today, connecting Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor with Grafana® doesn't mean hunting down a deprecated GitHub repo and hoping for the best. It means using an official, fully supported solution built right into PRTG Enterprise Monitor: PRTG Multi-Core Dashboards.
The concept is straightforward. PRTG Data Exporter - the underlying technology - pulls your metrics from one or multiple PRTG servers and writes them into a database (MS SQL or PostgreSQL). Grafana® then connects to that database as a Grafana® data source and gives you all the visualization power you'd expect: time series graphs, gauges, heatmaps, templates, and much more. No more broken JSON queries against the PRTG API. No more wondering why your Grafana integration fell apart after a Grafana® update.
What makes this genuinely useful for IT admins running complex environments:
And yes, you do need to install Grafana® separately. Grab it from grafana.com. It runs on Linux, works with Docker, fits into existing Grafana Labs setups, and plays nicely alongside tools like Prometheus in more complex environments - including Kubernetes-based infrastructures. Think of it as proper enterprise-grade observability, built on the network monitor you already know.
The old Grafana® -PRTG plugin tried to act as a direct PRTG data source for Grafana® . This new approach is architecturally cleaner: it decouples data export from visualization, so you're no longer dependent on plugin compatibility every time Paessler PRTG or Grafana pushes an update.
We've put together a detailed guide covering everything - from installation and database setup to your first multi-server Grafana® dashboard with pre-built templates. If you want the full technical picture, including how to configure your PRTG server connections and get the most out of the Grafana® dashboard visualization options, head here:
👉 Multi-Core Dashboards for visualization across multiple PRTG servers
Whether you're still running the old Grafana® -PRTG plugin and wondering why things keep breaking, or you're just getting started with PRTG and Grafana® for the first time - the path forward is clear. The community experiment was a great idea that ran its course. The official solution is here, it's supported, and for PRTG Enterprise Monitor customers, it's included in your subscription at no additional cost.
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👉 Download the free PRTG trial
Disclaimer: PRTG Data Exporter streamlines the process of visualizing PRTG monitoring data by exporting it to standalone databases (MS SQL, PostgreSQL) that can be easily connected to Grafana® for powerful dashboard creation and data visualization via Grafana® APIs. Grafana® is a trademark of Grafana Labs. PRTG Data Exporter is not affiliated with or endorsed by Grafana Labs.