Docker Compose: Prometheus + Grafana locally

Prometheus collects metrics and Grafana draws them in dashboards. Together they are the most common way to get started with monitoring. This guide sets them up locally so you learn the flow, and it is honest about something many tutorials skip: what this stack actually monitors and what it does not.

compose.yaml for Prometheus + Grafana

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:v2.54.1
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml:ro
      - prometheus_data:/prometheus
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:11.2.0
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    environment:
      GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${GRAFANA_ADMIN_PASSWORD}
    depends_on:
      - prometheus
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana

volumes:
  prometheus_data:
  grafana_data:

Prometheus needs its configuration. Create a prometheus.yml next to the compose:

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: prometheus
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]

And the .env.examplewith Grafana's admin password:

GRAFANA_ADMIN_PASSWORD=CHANGE_ME

Check that they start

docker compose up -d
# Prometheus: status of the targets it scrapes
#   http://localhost:9090/targets
# Prometheus health endpoint
#   http://localhost:9090/-/healthy
# Grafana: login admin / GRAFANA_ADMIN_PASSWORD
#   http://localhost:3000

If Grafana does not load, check docker compose logs grafana: the most common issues are a permissions problem on the grafana_data volume or port 3000 already being taken by something else on your machine.

What it monitors... and what it does not

Here is the part that prevents false expectations. Prometheus only collects metrics from the targets you list in scrape_configs. The prometheus.yml above only scrapes itself, so at first you will only see metrics about Prometheus itself.

• To monitor your app: your app must expose a /metrics endpoint and you add it as a new job in scrape_configs pointing at your-service:port.
• For host metrics (CPU, memory, disk) you usually add node_exporter as a separate service.
• What this does NOT cover: logs and traces. Full observability is more than metrics; this stack is only the metrics leg.

Connect Grafana to Prometheus

In Grafana, when adding the Prometheus data source, the URL is http://prometheus:9090: the service name, not localhost. To make the stack reproducible and not dependent on clicks, you can keep the data source and dashboards configured with provisioning (files mounted at /etc/grafana/provisioning).

In short: this is an excellent sandbox to learn metrics and dashboards, not a production-ready observability system.

Next steps

Generate this stack in the Docker Compose generator and head back to the examples index.