---
aliases:
  - ../../panels/visualizations/bar-chart/
  - ../../visualizations/bar-chart/
description: Configure options for Grafana's bar chart visualization
keywords:
  - grafana
  - docs
  - bar chart
  - panel
  - barchart
labels:
  products:
    - cloud
    - enterprise
    - oss
title: Bar chart
weight: 100
refs:
  standard-options-definitions:
    - pattern: /docs/grafana/
      destination: /docs/grafana/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/panels-visualizations/configure-standard-options/#max
    - pattern: /docs/grafana-cloud/
      destination: /docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/panels-visualizations/configure-standard-options/#max
  add-a-field-override:
    - pattern: /docs/grafana/
      destination: /docs/grafana/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/panels-visualizations/configure-overrides/#add-a-field-override
    - pattern: /docs/grafana-cloud/
      destination: /docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/panels-visualizations/configure-overrides/#add-a-field-override
  time-series:
    - pattern: /docs/grafana/
      destination: /docs/grafana/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/panels-visualizations/visualizations/time-series/
    - pattern: /docs/grafana-cloud/
      destination: /docs/grafana-cloud/visualizations/panels-visualizations/visualizations/time-series/
---

# Bar chart

A bar chart is a visual representation that uses rectangular bars, where the length of each bar represents each value.
You can use the bar chart visualization when you want to compare values over different categories or time periods. The visualization can display the bars horizontally or vertically, and can be customized to group or stack bars for more complex data analysis.

![Bar chart visualizations](/media/docs/grafana/panels-visualizations/screenshot-bar-charts-v11.3.png)

You can use the bar chart visualization if you need to show:

- Population distribution by age or location
- CPU usage per application
- Sales per division
- Server cost distribution

## Configure a bar chart

The following video shows you how to create and configure a bar chart visualization:

{{< youtube id="qyKE9-71KkE" >}}

{{< docs/play title="Grafana Bar Charts and Pie Charts" url="https://play.grafana.org/d/ktMs4D6Mk/" >}}

## Supported data formats

To create a bar chart visualization, you need a dataset containing one string or time field (or column) and at least one numeric field, though preferably more than one to make best use of the visualization.

The text or time field is used to label the bars or values in each row of data and the numeric fields are represented by proportionally sized bars.

### Example 1

| Group | Value1 | Value2 | Value3 |
| ----- | ------ | ------ | ------ |
| uno   | 5      | 3      | 2      |

![Bar chart single row example](/media/docs/grafana/panels-visualizations/screenshot-grafana-11.1-barchart-example1.png 'Bar chart single row example')

If you have more than one text or time field, by default, the visualization uses the first one, but you can change this in the x-axis option as described in the [Bar chart options](#bar-chart-options) section.

### Example 2

If your dataset contains multiple rows, the visualization displays multiple bar chart groups where each group contains multiple bars representing all the numeric values for a row.

| Group | Value1 | Value2 | Value3 |
| ----- | ------ | ------ | ------ |
| uno   | 5      | 3      | 2      |
| dos   | 10     | 6      | 4      |
| tres  | 20     | 8      | 2      |

![Bar chart multiple row example](/media/docs/grafana/panels-visualizations/screenshot-grafana-11.1-barchart-example2.png 'Bar chart multiple row example')

While the first field can be time-based and you can use a bar chart to plot time-series data, for large amounts of time-series data, we recommend that you use the [time series visualization](ref:time-series) and configure it to be displayed as bars.

We recommend that you only use one dataset in a bar chart because using multiple datasets can result in unexpected behavior.

## Configuration options

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/config-options-intro.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Panel options

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/panel-options.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Bar chart options

Use these options to refine your visualization.

<!-- prettier-ignore-start -->

| Option                           | Description                                                                                      |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| X Axis                           | Specify which field is used for the x-axis.          |
| Orientation                      | Choose from: <ul><li>**Auto** - Grafana decides the bar orientation based on the panel dimensions.</li><li>**Horizontal** - Will make the X axis the category axis.</li><li>**Vertical** - Will make the Y axis the category axis.</li></ul> |
| Rotate x-axis tick labels        | When the graph is vertically oriented, this setting rotates the labels under the bars. This setting is useful when bar chart labels are long and overlap.  |
| X-axis tick label max length | Sets the maximum length of bar chart labels. Labels longer than the maximum length are truncated, and appended with `...`. |
| X-axis labels minimum spacing | Sets the minimum spacing between x-axis labels. Depending on your choice, you can select the **RTL** checkbox to require space from the right side. Choose from: <ul><li>**None** - All tick marks are shown.</li><li>**Small** - 100 px of space is required between labels.</li><li>**Medium** - 200 px of space is required between labels.</li><li>**Large** - 300 px of space is required between labels.</li></ul>  |
| Show values                      | This controls whether values are shown. Values are shown on top or to the left of bars. Choose from: <ul><li>**Auto** Values will be shown if there is space.</li><li>**Always** Always show values.</li><li>**Never** Never show values.</li></ul>                                                               |
| Stacking                         | Controls bar chart stacking. Choose from: <ul><li>**Off**: Bars will not be stacked.</li><li>**Normal**: Bars will be stacked on each other.</li><li>**Percent**: Bars will be stacked on each other, and the height of each bar is the percentage of the total height of the stack.</li></ul> |
| Group width                      | Controls the width of groups. 1 = Max with, 0 = Min width.       |
| Bar width                        | Controls the width of bars. 1 = Max width, 0 = Min width.    |
| Bar radius                       | Controls the radius of the bars. Choose from: <ul><li>0 = Minimum radius</li><li>0.5 = Maximum radius</li></ul>     |
| Highlight full area on cover     | Controls if the entire surrounding area of the bar is highlighted when you hover over the bar.    |
| Color by field    | Use the color value for a sibling field to color each bar value. |
| Line width                       | Controls line width of the bars.    |
| Fill opacity                     | Controls the fill opacity bars.                    |
| [Gradient mode](#gradient-mode)  | Set the mode of the gradient fill. Fill gradient is based on the line color. To change the color, use the standard color scheme field option. Gradient appearance is influenced by the **Fill opacity** setting.                                                                               |

<!-- prettier-ignore-end -->

#### Gradient mode

Set the mode of the gradient fill. Fill gradient is based on the line color. To change the color, use the standard color scheme field option. Gradient appearance is influenced by the **Fill opacity** setting. Choose from:

- **None** - No gradient fill. This is the default setting.
- **Opacity** - Transparency of the gradient is calculated based on the values on the y-axis. Opacity of the fill is increasing with the values on the Y-axis.
- **Hue** - Gradient color is generated based on the hue of the line color.
- **Scheme** - The bar receives a gradient color defined by the **Standard options > Color scheme** selection.

  - **From thresholds** - If the **Color scheme** selection is **From thresholds (by value)**, then each bar is the color of the defined threshold.

    {{< figure src="/media/docs/grafana/panels-visualizations/screenshot-colors-by-thresholds-v11.3.png" alt="Color scheme From thresholds" caption="Color scheme: From thresholds" >}}

  - **Gradient color schemes** - The following image shows a bar chart with the **Green-Yellow-Red (by value)** color scheme option selected.

    {{< figure src="/media/docs/grafana/panels-visualizations/screenshot-colors-by-value-v11.3.png" alt="Color scheme Green-Yellow-Red" caption="Color scheme: Green-Yellow-Red" >}}

### Tooltip options

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/tooltip-options-1.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" leveloffset="+1" >}}

### Legend options

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/legend-options-1.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Text size

Enter a **Value** to change the size of the text on your bar chart.

### Axis

Use the following field settings to refine how your axes display.

For guidance on configuring more than one y-axis, refer to [Multiple y-axes](#multiple-y-axes).

Some field options will not affect the visualization until you click outside of the field option box you are editing or press Enter.

<!-- prettier-ignore-start -->

| Option | Description |
| ------ | ----------- |
| Placement | Select the placement of the Y-axis. Choose from: <ul><li>**Auto** - Grafana automatically assigns Y-axis to the series. When there are two or more series with different units, then Grafana assigns the left axis to the first unit and right to the following units.</li><li>**Left** - Display all Y-axes on the left side.</li><li>**Right** - Display all Y-axes on the right side.</li><li>**Hidden** - Hide all axes. To selectively hide axes, [add a field override](ref:add-a-field-override) that targets specific fields.</li></ul> |
| Label | Set a Y-axis text label. If you have more than one Y-axis, then you can assign different labels with an override. |
| Width | Set a fixed width of the axis. By default, Grafana dynamically calculates the width of an axis.<br></br>By setting the width of the axis, data whose axes types are different can share the same display proportions. This makes it easier to compare more than one graph’s worth of data because the axes are not shifted or stretched within visual proximity of each other. |
| Show grid lines | Set whether grid lines are displayed in the chart. Choose from: <ul><li>**Auto** - Grafana automatically determines whether grid lines are displayed.</li><li>**On** - Grid lines are always displayed.</li><li>**Off** - Grid lines are never displayed</li></ul> |
| Color | Choose whether the axis color is the **Text** or **Series** color. |
| Show border | Toggle the switch to hide or display the border. |
| Scale | Set how the y-axis is split. Choose from: <ul><li>**Linear**</li><li>**Logarithmic** - Choose between log base 2 or log base 10.</li><li>**Symlog** - Uses a symmetrical logarithmic scale. Choose between log base 2 or log base 10, allowing for negative values.</li></ul> |
| Centered zero | Set the y-axis so it's centered on zero. |
| [Soft min and soft max](#soft-min-and-soft-max) | Set a **Soft min** or **soft max** option for better control of Y-axis limits. By default, Grafana sets the range for the Y-axis automatically based on the dataset. |

<!-- prettier-ignore-end -->

#### Soft min and soft max

Set a **Soft min** or **soft max** option for better control of Y-axis limits. By default, Grafana sets the range for the Y-axis automatically based on the dataset.

**Soft min** and **soft max** settings can prevent blips from turning into mountains when the data is mostly flat, and hard min or max derived from standard min and max field options can prevent intermittent spikes from flattening useful detail by clipping the spikes past a defined point.

You can set standard min/max options to define hard limits of the Y-axis. For more information, refer to [Standard options definitions](ref:standard-options-definitions).

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/multiple-y-axes.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" leveloffset="+3" >}}

### Standard options

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/standard-options.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Data links and actions

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/datalink-options-2.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Value mappings

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/value-mappings-options.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Thresholds

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/thresholds-options-1.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}

### Field overrides

{{< docs/shared lookup="visualizations/overrides-options.md" source="grafana" version="<GRAFANA_VERSION>" >}}
