Last checked and updated on 01 Jun 2026
What Is New in Grafana 11.5
| Category | Highlights |
|---|---|
| New Features | Redesigned dashboard filters, new sharing experience, customizable panel images, Elasticsearch cross-cluster search, Private Data Source Connect for AWS plugins, time-series macros in visual query builder, RBAC for alerting notifications and notification policies, Plugin Frontend Sandbox. |
| Improvements | PDF export performance boost, reporting theme options, OAuth/SAML session handling enhancements, alertingApiServer flag enabled by default. |
How does the redesigned sharing and export experience simplify collaboration?
The new sharing model makes creating and distributing dashboards faster and more intuitive.
- Dashboard filters: Click anywhere in the filter field to start a new filter; Grafana auto-detects the filter part you're editing, reducing clicks.
- Sharing UI: A leaner panel lets you copy links, embed code, or generate shareable snapshots with fewer steps.
- Customizable panel images: When sharing a panel link, a "Panel preview" section lets you choose image size, theme (light/dark) and include a caption before copying the image URL.
- Reporting theme options: PDFs and embedded images now respect a global light or dark theme setting, ensuring visual consistency across reports.
- PDF export improvements: Export performance is dramatically faster and panels that repeat by a variable now render correctly, even inside collapsed rows.
How can I query multiple Elasticsearch clusters with a single data source?
Elasticsearch cross-cluster search lets you run a single query across all configured clusters.
- Configure the data source with the
cross_clusteroption and list the remote clusters you want to include. - Use standard Lucene queries; Grafana automatically rewrites them to target the appropriate clusters.
- This removes the need to maintain separate data sources for each geographic or team-specific cluster.
What new RBAC controls are available for alerting and notification policies?
Administrators now have granular role-based permissions over alerting notifications and policy management.
- RBAC for alerting notifications: The
alertingApiServerflag is enabled by default, and UI controls let you restrict which notification settings users can view or edit based on their role. - RBAC for notification policies: You can assign create, edit, or read permissions for the entire notification policy tree to fixed roles (e.g., Viewer, Editor, Admin). Individual policies cannot be scoped separately.
How have OAuth and SAML session handling been improved for smoother SSO?
Grafana now respects IdP session attributes to avoid unintended logouts.
- For SAML, Grafana includes the
SessionIndexattribute in logout requests and uses theNameIDfrom the IdP, preventing the previous behavior where logging out of Grafana terminated all IdP sessions. - OAuth flows now store external session identifiers, improving compatibility with providers that manage their own session lifecycles.
What security benefits does the Plugin Frontend Sandbox provide?
The sandbox isolates plugin UI code from the core Grafana application.
- Plugins run in a separate JavaScript context, reducing the risk of malicious code affecting the main UI.
- It mitigates cross-site scripting (XSS) vectors by limiting access to Grafana's global objects.
- Enable the sandbox via the
pluginSandbox.enabledsetting ingrafana.ini.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Grafana Cloud Migration Assistant support in version 11.5?
The assistant now migrates dashboards, data sources, folders, plugins, and Grafana alerts with a few clicks.
Can I use time-series macros like $__timeGroup in MySQL queries?
Use $__timeGroup in the query builder to group timestamps, for example SELECT $__timeGroup(timestamp, '1h') AS time, avg(value) FROM metrics GROUP BY time.
Do I need to change any settings to benefit from the new PDF export performance?
No configuration changes are required; the improvement is automatic.
How do I enable the Plugin Frontend Sandbox?
Add pluginSandbox.enabled = true to the [plugins] section of grafana.ini and restart Grafana.
Are there any breaking changes when upgrading to Grafana 11.5?
There are no breaking changes documented for this release.