- Queries and expressions that select the data set to evaluate.
- A condition (the threshold) that the query must meet or exceed to trigger the alert instance.
- An interval that specifies the frequency of [alert rule evaluation][alert-rule-evaluation] and a duration indicating how long the condition must be met to trigger the alert instance.
- Other customizable options, for example, setting what should happen in the absence of data, notification messages, and more.
Grafana-managed alert rules are the most flexible alert rule type. They allow you to create alerts that can act on data from any of our [supported data sources](#supported-data-sources), and use multiple data sources in a single alert rule.
Additionally, you can also add [expressions to transform your data][expression-queries], set custom alert conditions, and include [images in alert notifications][notification-images].
{{<figuresrc="/media/docs/alerting/grafana-managed-alerting-architecture.png"max-width="750px"caption="How Grafana-managed alerting works by default">}}
Grafana-managed alert rules can query backend data sources if Grafana Alerting enabled by specifying `{"backend": true, "alerting": true}` in the [plugin.json](/developers/plugin-tools/reference-plugin-json).
- [Enterprise data source plugins](/grafana/plugins/data-source-plugins/?enterprise=1) and others maintained by Grafana such as [AWS Athena](/grafana/plugins/grafana-athena-datasource/), [AWS X-Ray](/grafana/plugins/grafana-x-ray-datasource/), [AWS Redshift](/grafana/plugins/grafana-redshift-datasource/), [AWS Timestream](/grafana/plugins/grafana-timestream-datasource/), [AWS IoT SiteWise](/grafana/plugins/grafana-iot-sitewise-datasource/), [Azure Data Explorer](/grafana/plugins/grafana-azure-data-explorer-datasource/), [Azure Monitor](/grafana/plugins/grafana-azure-monitor-datasource/), [ClickHouse](/grafana/plugins/grafana-clickhouse-datasource/), [Cloudwatch](/grafana/plugins/cloudwatch/), [CSV](/grafana/plugins/marcusolsson-csv-datasource/), [Elasticsearch](/grafana/plugins/elasticsearch/), [Falcon LogScale](/grafana/plugins/grafana-falconlogscale-datasource/), [GitHub](/grafana/plugins/grafana-github-datasource/), [Google BigQuery](/grafana/plugins/grafana-bigquery-datasource/), [Google Cloud Monitoring](/grafana/plugins/stackdriver/), [Graphite](/grafana/plugins/graphite/), [Loki](/grafana/plugins/loki/), [InfluxDB](/grafana/plugins/influxdb/), [Infinity](/grafana/plugins/yesoreyeram-infinity-datasource/), [MSSQL](/grafana/plugins/mssql/), [MySQL](/grafana/plugins/mysql/), [OpenSearch](/grafana/plugins/grafana-opensearch-datasource/), [OpenTSDB](/grafana/plugins/opentsdb/), [Oracle](/grafana/plugins/grafana-oracle-datasource/), [Orbit](/grafana/plugins/grafana-orbit-datasource/), [PostgreSQL](/grafana/plugins/postgres/), [Prometheus](/grafana/plugins/prometheus/), [Sentry](/grafana/plugins/grafana-sentry-datasource/), [SurrealDB](/grafana/plugins/grafana-surrealdb-datasource/), and [TestData](/grafana/plugins/grafana-testdata-datasource/).
- Backend data sources maintained by the [community](/grafana/plugins/data-source-plugins/?signature=community) and [partners](/grafana/plugins/data-source-plugins/?signature=commercial) that enable alerting.
Data source-managed alert rules can improve query performance via [recording rules](#recording-rules) and ensure high-availability and fault tolerance when implementing a distributed architecture.
They are only supported for Prometheus-based or Loki data sources with the Ruler API enabled. For more information, refer to the [Loki Ruler API](/docs/loki/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/api/#ruler) or [Mimir Ruler API](/docs/mimir/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/references/http-api/#ruler).
A recording rule allows you to pre-compute frequently needed or computationally expensive expressions and save their result as a new set of time series. This is useful if you want to run alerts on aggregated data or if you have dashboards that query computationally expensive expressions repeatedly.
Querying this new time series is faster, especially for dashboards since they query the same expression every time the dashboards refresh. For more information, refer to [Create recording rules][create-recording-rules].
| Create alert rules<wbr/> based on data from any of our supported data sources | Yes | No. You can only create alert rules that are based on Prometheus-based data. |
| Includes support for recording rules | No | Yes |
| Add expressions to transform<wbr/> your data and set alert conditions | Yes | No |
| Use images in alert notifications | Yes | No |
| Scaling | More resource intensive, depend on the database, and are likely to suffer from transient errors. They only scale vertically. | Store alert rules within the data source itself and allow for “infinite” scaling. Generate and send alert notifications from the location of your data. |
| Alert rule evaluation and delivery | Alert rule evaluation and delivery is done from within Grafana, using an external Alertmanager; or both. | Alert rule evaluation and alert delivery is distributed, meaning there is no single point of failure. |
