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Kibana

What is Kibana?​

Kibana is the official visualization and dashboard UI for Elasticsearch. It lets you explore indices, build charts, and query data through a web interface instead of the raw REST API. Laradock builds it from the official image, version-matched to Elasticsearch.

Start Kibana​

docker compose up -d kibana

kibana/compose.yml lists elasticsearch as a dependency, so it starts automatically alongside Kibana. Kibana has nothing to visualize without it.

Stop Kibana​

docker compose stop kibana

To remove the container: docker compose rm -f kibana.

Configuration​

Laradock builds the image from kibana/Dockerfile using the shared ELK_VERSION variable in the root .env (the same version used for elasticsearch), plus this setting in kibana/defaults.env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
KIBANA_HTTP_PORT5601Host-side port Kibana is published on (container port 5601).

Connect​

Open http://localhost:5601 in your browser. Kibana auto-detects the elasticsearch container over the internal backend network, no manual host configuration needed for the bundled setup.

Common issues​

  • Kibana shows "Kibana server is not ready yet". It waits on Elasticsearch to be reachable and healthy first; confirm elasticsearch is actually up with docker compose ps and check docker compose logs elasticsearch.
  • Version mismatch errors. Kibana and Elasticsearch both read ELK_VERSION from the root .env, so they build to the same version automatically. If you changed one manually, rebuild both: docker compose build kibana elasticsearch.
  • Port already in use on your host. Change KIBANA_HTTP_PORT in .env and restart: docker compose up -d kibana.

Need a lighter-weight index browser instead? See Dejavu. Need the underlying engine? See Elasticsearch. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.