Prometheus + Grafana Setup Using Docker Compose

This guide walks you through setting up Prometheus and Grafana using Docker Compose. Prometheus collects and stores metrics, while Grafana visualizes them in dashboards.

What We’re Building

Your Server
│
├── Docker
│
├── Prometheus ──── collects metrics
│
└── Grafana ─────── displays metrics

1. Check Docker Is Installed

Run:

docker --version
docker compose version

Expected output:

Docker version 28.x.x
Docker Compose version v2.x.x

If Docker isn’t installed, install Docker Desktop on Windows/macOS, or Docker Engine + Compose on Linux.

2. Create a Project Directory

mkdir monitoring
cd monitoring

Create these folders:

mkdir prometheus
mkdir grafana

Your directory should look like:

monitoring/
├── prometheus/
└── grafana/

3. Create Prometheus Configuration

Create:

monitoring/prometheus/prometheus.yml

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s

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

What does this do?

This tells Prometheus: every 15 seconds, collect metrics from Prometheus itself.

The important part is:

targets: ["prometheus:9090"]

prometheus is the Docker service name, and 9090 is Prometheus’s internal port.

4. Create Docker Compose File

Inside monitoring/, create:

docker-compose.yml

services:

  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    container_name: prometheus
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
      - prometheus_data:/prometheus
    restart: unless-stopped

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  prometheus_data:
  grafana_data:

Now your project looks like:

monitoring/
├── docker-compose.yml
├── prometheus/
│   └── prometheus.yml
└── grafana/

5. Start Everything

From the monitoring directory:

docker compose up -d

Check the containers:

docker ps

You should see prometheus and grafana running.

Check logs:

docker compose logs

Or specifically:

docker compose logs prometheus
docker compose logs grafana

6. Open Prometheus

Open your browser:

http://localhost:9090

Go to Status → Targets.

You should see:

prometheus    UP

UP means Prometheus is successfully collecting metrics.

7. Open Grafana

Open:

http://localhost:3000

The default login:

Grafana will ask you to change the password after the first login.

8. Connect Grafana to Prometheus

Inside Grafana:

Connections → Data sources → Add data source

Choose Prometheus.

For the URL, use:

http://prometheus:9090

Important: Don’t use http://localhost:9090 inside Grafana.

Why?

Grafana is running inside a Docker container. From Grafana’s point of view, localhost means the Grafana container itself.

Docker Compose creates a network where containers communicate using their service names:

Grafana → prometheus:9090 → Prometheus

Click Save & test. You should get a successful connection message.

9. See Your First Metric

In Grafana, open Explore.

Select your Prometheus data source.

Try this query:

up

You should see:

up{instance="prometheus:9090", job="prometheus"} 1

The value 1 means Prometheus is up.

10. Create Your First Dashboard

Go to: Dashboards → New → New dashboard → Add visualization

Select Prometheus as the data source.

Try:

up

Choose a visualization such as Stat.

You now have your first Grafana panel.

11. Current Architecture

┌─────────────────┐
│    Grafana      │
│    :3000        │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         │ PromQL
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   Prometheus    │
│    :9090        │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         │ metrics
         ▼
  Prometheus itself

There is one important thing missing: we aren’t monitoring your actual server/application yet.

12. Next Step: Node Exporter

If you want to monitor a Linux server, the usual next step is adding Node Exporter.

Node Exporter exposes metrics like:

• CPU usage
• RAM usage
• Disk usage
• Network traffic
• Filesystem usage
• System load

Your architecture would then become:

         ┌──────────────┐
         │   Grafana    │
         │    :3000     │
         └──────┬───────┘
                │
                ▼
         ┌──────────────┐
         │  Prometheus  │
         │    :9090     │
         └──────┬───────┘
                │
                ▼
         ┌──────────────┐
         │Node Exporter │
         │    :9100     │
         └──────────────┘
                │
                ▼
            Linux Host

13. Useful Docker Commands

Conclusion

You now have a working Prometheus + Grafana monitoring stack running in Docker Compose. Prometheus scrapes metrics every 15 seconds, and Grafana provides the visualization layer. From here, you can add Node Exporter for system metrics, or instrument your applications with client libraries to expose custom metrics.

Beginner tip: Don’t worry about understanding every line of docker-compose.yml yet. First get Prometheus + Grafana running, verify the up metric, and then add Node Exporter and learn how Prometheus scraping works.