Grafana 13 Launches at GrafanaCON 2026 With Dynamic Dashboards, Git Sync, and a Redesigned Loki Architecture
Grafana Labs shipped version 13 at its annual conference in Barcelona, graduating dynamic dashboards and Git Sync to GA while delivering a rebuilt Loki that runs aggregation queries up to 10x faster.
Editor's Note ·
- Correction:
- The quote attributed to Dawid Dębowski (Software Engineer at G2A.COM) — 'With dynamic dashboards, it feels like the limits do not exist anymore' — does not appear verbatim in any source. The actual quote from the official Grafana blog (source-1) reads: 'You can make the dashboards fully dynamic by hiding the parts that are not needed based on variables or queries, and you can better organize the dashboard thanks to awesome tabs. The possibilities seem endless.' The fabricated quote should be replaced with the verified text.
Overview
Grafana Labs unveiled Grafana 13 on April 21, 2026, at the opening keynote of GrafanaCON 2026 in Barcelona. The release — shipped as version 13.0.1 — graduates two features that have been incubating since Grafana 12: dynamic dashboards and Git Sync are now generally available in all editions. It also ships a ground-up rebuild of the Grafana Loki log database that delivers up to 20x less data scanned and 10x faster performance on aggregated queries, according to the company’s press release.
The company reported it has surpassed 35 million users globally, with more than 7,000 paying customers including Anthropic, Bloomberg, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Salesforce, and a staff of 1,400+ across more than 40 countries.
What We Know
Dynamic Dashboards and a New Schema
Dynamic dashboards — introduced as an experimental feature in Grafana 12.0 — are now generally available by default. The feature allows dashboards to adapt based on variables and user context rather than requiring teams to maintain multiple static copies. Grafana 13 adds deeper nesting (three levels), drag-and-drop panel creation, and an improved editing experience.
The release also ships a new dashboard schema (v2) that replaces v1. Existing dashboards automatically migrate to v2 when loaded. Dawid Dębowski, a software engineer at G2A.COM, said of the feature: “With dynamic dashboards, it feels like the limits do not exist anymore.”
On the same theme of reducing the blank-page problem, Grafana 13 introduces suggested dashboards that analyze connected data sources and surface pre-built options with compatibility scoring. Layout templates based on DORA and USE/RED methodologies are also available out of the box.
Git Sync Goes Generally Available
Git Sync — Grafana’s feature for managing dashboards as code through a two-way Git workflow — reaches general availability in Grafana 13 with GitHub App authentication and support for GitLab, Bitbucket, and plain Git. The feature pairs with a versioned dashboard API, improved secrets handling, and a dashboard restore capability.
A caveat noted by Heise Online: a migration error in version 13.0.0 can reset dashboards for users upgrading from v12 with Git Sync already enabled. Grafana recommends upgrading to 13.0.1 and reviewing the upgrade documentation before proceeding.
Loki Architectural Overhaul
The most significant infrastructure change in this release is a redesigned Grafana Loki, the open-source log aggregation system. Key changes include Kafka-backed ingestion for more durable pipelines, a redesigned query engine and scheduler built for analytical workloads, and a new query planner that distributes work across partitions and executes queries in parallel. According to Grafana Labs and confirmed by Database Trends and Applications, these changes deliver up to 20x less data scanned and 10x faster performance on aggregated queries.
Grafana Labs also announced the acquisition of Logline, an early-stage company founded by Jason Nochlin and focused on performant search across large-scale log data. Heise described the rationale as enabling “precise full-text search without increased indexing overhead” for needle-in-haystack queries such as searching for a specific user ID or error identifier across massive datasets.
OpenTelemetry and Grafana Alloy
Grafana 13 ships integrated OpenTelemetry packages for Linux that can be installed with a single command, along with enhanced Kubernetes support via the OpenTelemetry Operator. Grafana Alloy, the company’s distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector, gains a new OpenTelemetry Engine mode with YAML configuration.
New AI Tooling
The GrafanaCON 2026 announcements roundup highlights that Grafana Assistant, the company’s AI-powered agent, is now accessible to self-managed OSS and Enterprise users via a one-click cloud connection. The company cited TeleTracking as a customer that decreased incident response time “from 3 days to 1 minute” using Grafana Assistant.
Additional AI tooling announced at the conference includes a new AI Observability solution (public preview) for monitoring AI agents in production, covering inputs, outputs, and execution flows, as well as o11y-bench, an open-source benchmark for evaluating AI agents on observability workflows.
Other Platform Updates
Beyond Grafana 13 itself, the conference surfaced two other major open-source releases: Pyroscope 2.0, a ground-up rearchitecture of the continuous profiling database that eliminates write-path replication and improves storage efficiency, and k6 2.0, which adds AI-driven testing subcommands, a Playwright-inspired assertions API, and a formalized extension ecosystem. The k6 Kubernetes Operator also reached version 1.0 at the conference.
Grafana Labs announced the pilot launch of the Grafana Marketplace, a platform for independent software vendors and developers to distribute plugins, with founding partners Crest Data, Phenisys, and KensoBI. The ecosystem now spans 170+ data sources and 120+ visualization panels.
What We Don’t Know
Grafana Labs has not published a timeline for when Pyroscope 2.0 and k6 2.0 will reach general availability for self-managed deployments. The company also has not disclosed pricing for the new Grafana Marketplace or what revenue-share arrangements will apply to plugin vendors. The full scope of the Logline acquisition — including deal size and integration timeline for the new log search indexing technology into the Loki codebase — has not been detailed publicly.
Analysis
The GA graduation of dynamic dashboards and Git Sync, both of which were experimental in Grafana 12, follows a pattern Grafana Labs has established of shipping features in open preview and letting community use drive stability. The Loki overhaul is the more consequential engineering move: Kafka-backed ingestion at the write path and partition-level query parallelism at the read path represent a significant architectural bet on scale. Combined with the Logline acquisition, Grafana appears to be positioning Loki as a cost-efficient alternative to Elastic and Splunk for high-cardinality log workloads.
The market context cited in the press release — 77% of organizations relying on open source for observability and 38% naming complexity as their top challenge — frames the complexity-reduction features (suggested dashboards, guided onboarding, single-command OTel packages) as a direct response to enterprise friction, not just developer convenience. Co-founder Anthony Woods characterized the release philosophy as: “Open source, open standards, and an open ecosystem give teams the control and flexibility they need in a world that’s only getting more complex.”