kibana

Kibana is an open-source visualization and exploration tool designed for data stored in Elasticsearch. It forms the browser-based user interface of the Elastic Stack and is used to search, view, and interact with data in Elasticsearch clusters. Kibana supports real-time data visualization and interactive dashboards.

Core features include interactive dashboards and a library of visualizations such as bar, line, and pie charts, as well as maps for geospatial data. It offers Discover for ad-hoc querying, Lens for drag-and-drop visualization construction, and Canvas for presentation-style visuals. Additional capabilities cover advanced visualization with Vega, machine learning integration for anomaly detection, and alerting or reporting to share insights.

Kibana interacts directly with Elasticsearch through its REST API. Users define index patterns to describe which data fields to use and then create visualizations and dashboards that query data from one or more indices. Filters, timeframes, and drill-downs enable focused analysis and rapid exploration of large datasets.

Deployment and scope: Kibana runs as a web application alongside Elasticsearch, usable on premises or in cloud deployments including Elastic Cloud. It is a central component of the Elastic Stack, connecting with data ingestion tools such as Logstash and Beats to provide end-to-end observability, security analytics, and search capabilities.

History and licensing: Developed by Elastic, Kibana has evolved as part of the Elastic Stack to support a wide range of use cases, including observability and security analytics. The project is maintained by Elastic and released under licensing terms that cover its core open-source features and additional capabilities.