At PromLabs we created PromLens, the ultimate power tool for building, understanding, and visualizing PromQL queries, with the goal of helping users get the most out of PromQL-compatible monitoring solutions. Today we are happy to announce that we partnered with Chronosphere, a SaaS observability solution, to bring PromQL query building capabilities, powered by PromLens, to all Chronosphere users.

PromQL and PromLens

Across the IT industry, PromQL is becoming the standard query language for time-series-based monitoring and alerting. While PromQL is a powerful language that allows for flexible calculations, it has a daunting learning curve and comes with a few sharp edges and pitfalls. Last year we built PromLens, a query builder, analyzer, and explainer tool that helps you learn and understand PromQL and lets you build queries much more effectively and confidently. On one hand, PromLens helps beginners by surfacing language and syntax features in a graphical way (for example, via a form-based editor), by providing explanations of query constructs, and by showing warnings and quick-fix actions for common mistakes. On the other hand, PromLens also assists experts in building and analyzing queries rapidly by showing what underlying data is available at each expression node of a query:

So far, the only way to gain access to these query building and analyzing features for PromQL was to purchase PromLens as a stand-alone tool and deploy it on your own infrastructure. This changes today with Chronosphere's integration of query building and analysis capabilities in their platform.

Chronosphere and PromQL

Chronosphere is a SaaS observability and monitoring platform that allows users to store Prometheus-compatible data and query it using PromQL. Notably, Chronosphere is also one of the few services that achieved a full 100% compatibility score in our recent round of PromQL compatibility tests and is generally committed to compatibility with the Prometheus ecosystem.

Today we are happy to announce that we have worked together with Chronosphere to bring advanced PromQL query building features to the platform's users. The new Chronosphere feature, called Query Builder, is rooted in PromLens technology and will enable users of the platform to enjoy many of the same benefits that PromLens brings: faster analysis of queries, form-based editing, quick explanations of query constructs, and more. This makes Chronosphere the first platform to offer a fully-fledged visual PromQL query builder to their users.

Head over to Chronosphere's announcement blog post for more details about the new Query Builder feature!

Conclusion

PromLens is an immensely useful tool for understanding, building, and analyzing PromQL queries. With Chronosphere's new Query Builder feature, all users of their service will also gain access to powerful PromQL query editing features, enabling them to work much more effectively with the language. Stay tuned for future enhancements in this space!