How do people feel about Prom/Grafana? I can figure out most things, but I've had nothing but problems with these tools for years. I assume I'm the problem, because I never hear anything but high praise from anyone else. But for me it's pure friction every time I touch them and I can't figure out why.
You could try looking into the Influx stack - I have InfluxDB 2.x running, which has it's own built in dashboarding tool which (I find) has a lower learning curve than Grafana.
Variables are shown at the top of the screen. You would assume that adding a new variable would involve a UI element placed in proximity to the existing variables. However, that's not the case at all. None of the sections in the manual would even tell you where you need to go to do that. The answer: you need to go to the dashboard settings dialog and open the Variables tab.
What about editing the name of an item? Well, that functionality could be anywhere. If it's a variable name, you go back to the "Settings" tab. If it's a query name, you can change it inline. For a panel, you do it from the sidebar. Hurray for consistency.
The UI looks great, but the learning curve is terrible due to inconsistency.
I wouldn't say it's terrible but prometheus & grafana have a learning curve for sure.
It's a question of do you want a pull-based architecture (prometheus) or a push-based one (influxdb). Grafana is just a frontend that supports either, although influx also has its own frontend.
