diff --git a/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/Combobox.tsx b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/Combobox.tsx
index 30f24775be6..34645d76aca 100644
--- a/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/Combobox.tsx
+++ b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/Combobox.tsx
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ import { Portal } from '../Portal/Portal';
 import { ScrollContainer } from '../ScrollContainer/ScrollContainer';
 
 import { AsyncError, NotFoundError } from './MessageRows';
-import { itemFilter, itemToString } from './filter';
+import { fuzzyFind, itemToString } from './filter';
 import { getComboboxStyles, MENU_OPTION_HEIGHT, MENU_OPTION_HEIGHT_DESCRIPTION } from './getComboboxStyles';
 import { useComboboxFloat } from './useComboboxFloat';
 import { StaleResultError, useLatestAsyncCall } from './useLatestAsyncCall';
@@ -158,6 +158,12 @@ export const Combobox = <T extends string | number>(props: ComboboxProps<T>) =>
     [createCustomValue, id, ariaLabelledBy]
   );
 
+  // Memoize for using in fuzzy search
+  const stringifiedItems = useMemo(
+    () => (isAsync ? [] : options.map((item) => itemToString(item))),
+    [options, isAsync]
+  );
+
   const selectedItemIndex = useMemo(() => {
     if (isAsync) {
       return null;
@@ -262,7 +268,7 @@ export const Combobox = <T extends string | number>(props: ComboboxProps<T>) =>
       }
 
       if (!isAsync) {
-        const filteredItems = options.filter(itemFilter(inputValue));
+        const filteredItems = fuzzyFind(options, stringifiedItems, inputValue);
         setItems(filteredItems, inputValue);
       } else {
         if (inputValue && createCustomValue) {
diff --git a/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.test.ts b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..f7a5eb534fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+import { fuzzyFind } from './filter';
+
+describe('combobox filter', () => {
+  it('should properly rank by match quality', () => {
+    const needle = 'C';
+
+    const stringOptions = ['A', 'AA', 'AB', 'AC', 'BC', 'C', 'CD'];
+    const options = stringOptions.map((value) => ({ value }));
+
+    const matches = fuzzyFind(options, stringOptions, needle);
+
+    expect(matches.map((m) => m.value)).toEqual(['C', 'CD', 'AC', 'BC']);
+  });
+
+  it('orders by match quality and case sensitivty', () => {
+    const stringOptions = [
+      'client_service_namespace',
+      'namespace',
+      'alert_namespace',
+      'container_namespace',
+      'Namespace',
+      'client_k8s_namespace_name',
+      'foobar',
+    ];
+    const options = stringOptions.map((value) => ({ value }));
+
+    const matches = fuzzyFind(options, stringOptions, 'Names');
+
+    expect(matches.map((m) => m.value)).toEqual([
+      'Namespace',
+      'namespace',
+      'alert_namespace',
+      'container_namespace',
+      'client_k8s_namespace_name',
+      'client_service_namespace',
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  describe('non-ascii', () => {
+    it('should do substring match when needle is non-latin', () => {
+      const needle = '水';
+
+      const stringOptions = ['A水', 'AA', 'AB', 'AC', 'BC', 'C', 'CD'];
+      const options = stringOptions.map((value) => ({ value }));
+
+      const matches = fuzzyFind(options, stringOptions, needle);
+
+      expect(matches.map((m) => m.value)).toEqual(['A水']);
+    });
+
+    it('second case for non-latin characters', () => {
+      const stringOptions = ['台灣省', '台中市', '台北市', '台南市', '南投縣', '高雄市', '台中第一高級中學'];
+
+      const options = stringOptions.map((value) => ({ value }));
+
+      const matches = fuzzyFind(options, stringOptions, '南');
+
+      expect(matches.map((m) => m.value)).toEqual(['台南市', '南投縣']);
+    });
+  });
+});
diff --git a/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.ts b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.ts
index dbf86c062d6..94419efe9ca 100644
--- a/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.ts
+++ b/packages/grafana-ui/src/components/Combobox/filter.ts
@@ -1,16 +1,33 @@
+import uFuzzy from '@leeoniya/ufuzzy';
+
 import { ComboboxOption } from './Combobox';
 import { ALL_OPTION_VALUE } from './MultiCombobox';
 
+// https://catonmat.net/my-favorite-regex :)
+const REGEXP_NON_ASCII = /[^ -~]/m;
+// limit max terms in needle that qualify for re-ordering
+const outOfOrderLimit = 5;
+// beyond 25 chars fall back to substring search
+const maxNeedleLength = 25;
+// beyond 5 terms fall back to substring match
+const maxFuzzyTerms = 5;
+// when number of matches <= 1e4, do ranking + sorting by quality
+const rankThreshold = 1e4;
+
+// typo tolerance mode
+const uf = new uFuzzy({ intraMode: 1 });
+
 export function itemToString<T extends string | number>(item?: ComboboxOption<T> | null) {
-  if (!item) {
+  if (item == null) {
     return '';
   }
-  if (item.label?.includes('Custom value: ')) {
+  if (item.label?.startsWith('Custom value: ')) {
     return item.value.toString();
   }
   return item.label ?? item.value.toString();
 }
 
+//TODO: Remove when MutliCombobox async has been merged
 export function itemFilter<T extends string | number>(inputValue: string) {
   const lowerCasedInputValue = inputValue.toLowerCase();
 
@@ -23,3 +40,45 @@ export function itemFilter<T extends string | number>(inputValue: string) {
     );
   };
 }
+
+export function fuzzyFind<T extends string | number>(
+  options: Array<ComboboxOption<T>>,
+  haystack: string[],
+  needle: string
+) {
+  let matches: Array<ComboboxOption<T>> = [];
+
+  if (needle === '') {
+    matches = options;
+  }
+  // fallback to substring matches to avoid badness
+  else if (
+    // contains non-ascii
+    REGEXP_NON_ASCII.test(needle) ||
+    // too long (often copy-paste from somewhere)
+    needle.length > maxNeedleLength ||
+    uf.split(needle).length > maxFuzzyTerms
+  ) {
+    for (let i = 0; i < haystack.length; i++) {
+      let item = haystack[i];
+
+      if (item.includes(needle)) {
+        matches.push(options[i]);
+      }
+    }
+  }
+  // fuzzy search
+  else {
+    const [idxs, info, order] = uf.search(haystack, needle, outOfOrderLimit, rankThreshold);
+
+    if (idxs?.length) {
+      if (info && order) {
+        matches = order.map((idx) => options[info.idx[idx]]);
+      } else {
+        matches = idxs.map((idx) => options[idx]);
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
+  return matches;
+}