Documentation

Get started with the InfluxData Platform

To get started with the InfluxDB 2.0 platform, see InfluxDB Cloud or InfluxDB OSS 2.0.

To get started with the InfluxData 1.x platform, download and install each component of the TICK stack, or Install the InfluxData Sandbox, and then follow the steps below.

Getting started setup

Understand how Telegraf writes data to InfluxDB

Once Telegraf is installed and started, it will send system metrics to InfluxDB by default, which automatically creates a ‘telegraf’ database.

The configuration file for Telegraf specifies where metrics come from and where they go (inputs and outputs). In this example, we’ll focus on CPU data, which is one of the default system metrics generated by Telegraf. For this example, it is worth noting some relevant values:

  • [agent].interval - declares the frequency at which system metrics will be sent to InfluxDB.
  • [[outputs.influxdb]] - declares how to connect to InfluxDB and the destination database, which is the default ‘telegraf’ database.
  • [[inputs.cpu]] - declares how to collect the system cpu metrics to be sent to InfluxDB. Enabled by default.

For details about the configuration file, see Get started with Telegraf.

Query data in InfluxDB

As reviewed above, Telegraf is sending system data, including CPU usage, to InfluxDB. There are two ways you can query your InfluxDB data:

Query example:

SELECT "usage_system",
       "usage_user"
FROM "telegraf"."autogen"."cpu"
WHERE time > now() - 30m

Visualize that data in a Chronograf dashboard

Now that you’ve explored your data with queries, you can build a dashboard in Chronograf to visualize the data. For details, see Create a dashboard and Using pre-created dashboards.

Create an alert in Kapacitor based on that data

Since InfluxDB is running on localhost:8086, Kapacitor finds it during start up and creates several subscriptions on InfluxDB. These subscriptions tell InfluxDB to send all the data it receives from Telegraf to Kapacitor.

For step-by-step instructions on how to set up an alert in Kapacitor based on your data, see Creating Chronograf alert rules.


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New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On November 3, 2025, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2