---
title: "Add CloudWatch as a data source | Grafana Labs"
description: "Navigate Grafana Cloud and add the built-in Amazon 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).

# Add CloudWatch as a data source

Grafana includes built-in support for Amazon CloudWatch, so there’s no plugin to install. In this milestone, you add the CloudWatch data source to your Grafana Cloud instance.

Let’s walk through the steps together.

1. In the navigation menu, go to **Connections > Data sources**.
2. Click **Add new data source**.
3. In the **Filter by name or type** field, enter `CloudWatch`.
4. Click **CloudWatch**.
   
   Grafana creates the data source and opens its **Settings** tab, where you’ll configure the connection.

In the next milestone, you’ll choose an authentication method and set your default AWS region.