The latest articles on DEV Community by liang finley (@liang_finley_1abaa5683729). https://dev.to/liang_finley_1abaa5683729 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3932772%2F40b687f9-67fc-4623-b359-9738d25f3c3f.png https://dev.to/liang_finley_1abaa5683729 en liang finley Fri, 15 May 2026 08:59:45 +0000 https://dev.to/liang_finley_1abaa5683729/how-to-make-time-shifed-compare-metrics-in-grafana-across-datasources-3d8n https://dev.to/liang_finley_1abaa5683729/how-to-make-time-shifed-compare-metrics-in-grafana-across-datasources-3d8n <h1> How to Compare Today vs Yesterday Metrics in Grafana Across Datasources </h1> <p>When building Grafana dashboards, one common question comes up again and again:</p> <blockquote> <p>How does this metric compare with yesterday, last week, or before the last release?</p> </blockquote> <p>I built <strong>CompareQueries</strong>, a Grafana datasource plugin for comparing time-shifted queries across datasources in one panel.</p> <p>It is useful for workflows like:</p> <ul> <li>today vs yesterday/last week/custom dates dashboard comparison metrics</li> <li>time-shifted time-series dashboards before vs after</li> <li>day-over-day or week-over-week business metrics</li> <li>shifted comparison queries in Grafana Alerting</li> </ul> <h2> What It Does </h2> <p>CompareQueries lets you run the same query with different time shifts and display the results together in one Grafana panel.</p> <p>It works with Prometheus, Loki, Elasticsearch, SQL, and other Grafana datasources through their native query editors.</p> <p>For new dashboards, the recommended flow is:</p> <ol> <li>Create a panel with <code>-- Mixed --</code> as the panel datasource.</li> <li>Add a query row with <code>CompareQueries</code>.</li> <li>Pick the target datasource inside CompareQueries.</li> <li>Build the query with the datasource’s native query editor.</li> <li>Add time shifts such as <code>1d</code>, <code>1w</code>, or <code>30m</code>.</li> </ol> <h2> Grafana 13+ and Alerting Support </h2> <p>CompareQueries supports Grafana 11, 12, and 13+.</p> <p>For Grafana 13+ and new dashboards, it uses the Target Datasource flow because legacy RefId-style query references are no longer supported in Grafana 13+.</p> <p>It also supports Grafana Alerting through backend query execution, so shifted comparison queries can be used in alert rules as well as dashboards.</p> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F5pn56n3cols8tq8nzcr8.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F5pn56n3cols8tq8nzcr8.png" alt=" " width="800" height="716"></a></p> <h2> Links </h2> <p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/leoswing/comparequeries-datasource-rc" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://github.com/leoswing/comparequeries-datasource-rc</a></p> <p>Feedback, dashboard examples, feature requests, and bug reports are welcome.</p> <p>If CompareQueries helps with your Grafana dashboards or alerting workflows, please consider giving the GitHub repo a star so more users can discover it.</p> grafana timeshift datasource observability