---
title: "CloudWatch | Grafana Labs"
description: "The AWS CloudWatch data source."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# CloudWatch: Native AWS monitoring

**What it’s for:** AWS resources including EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3, ECS, and many other AWS services.

## Good to know

- Connects to AWS services like EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3, and ECS, with no collection agents to deploy
- Requires AWS authentication configured in Grafana
- AWS bills the GetMetricData API that Grafana uses per metric retrieved, so dashboards that pull many metrics on frequent refreshes can add cost.

## Best for

- AWS infrastructure monitoring
- Services only available via CloudWatch
- Quick visibility into AWS resources

> **Cost Tip**: Monitor your CloudWatch costs. GetMetricData is billed per metric retrieved, so more metrics and more frequent refreshes mean higher bills.

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## Documentation

View the full documentation.

[CloudWatch data source](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/aws-cloudwatch/)