Why Kibana Isn’t Built for Customer-Facing Dashboards | Embedding Limitations Explained

TL;DR

Kibana was designed for internal ops teams, not customer-facing SaaS products. Embedding it via iframe means fighting double authentication, manual multi-tenant configuration per customer, impossible white-labeling (browser security blocks CSS injection), 2–4 MB JavaScript bundles with 3–5 second load times, and zero SDK support. If your customers need analytics in your product, use a purpose-built embedded analytics solution instead.

Table of Contents

Kibana is excellent at what it was designed for: giving internal teams a window into Elasticsearch data. But if you’re trying to embed Kibana dashboards into a customer-facing SaaS product, you’ve likely discovered it wasn’t built for that use case.

This isn’t speculation. It’s documented in Elastic’s own forums, GitHub issues, and countless developer threads. Let’s examine the specific limitations that make Kibana problematic for customer-facing analytics.

The Core Problem: Kibana Was Built for Internal Use

Kibana’s architecture assumes a trusted internal user base with centralized authentication. When you try to expose it to external customers, you’re fighting against its fundamental design.

What Internal Tools Assume vs. What SaaS Requires

Kibana checks every box on the left. SaaS embedded analytics requires every box on the right.

Kibana’s internal-tool design assumptions clash with what customer-facing SaaS products require across authentication, multi-tenancy, branding, and performance.

Limitation 1: Authentication Nightmares with Iframe Embedding

When you embed Kibana via iframe, authentication becomes immediately problematic.

The Double Authentication Problem

According to discussions in the Elastic community, there’s no formal solution to embedding Kibana without forcing users through double authentication. Your customers authenticate to your app, then face a second Kibana login prompt inside the iframe.

Common workarounds and why they fail:

1. Anonymous access: Exposes data to anyone with the URL
2. Shared credentials: Security nightmare, no audit trail
3. Proxy authentication: Complex to build, maintain, and secure
4. Cookie passing: Blocked by modern browsers’ SameSite policies

Recent Regression: embed=true Missing

In Kibana 8.15.x, the embed=true parameter stopped appearing in generated embed URLs, causing the full Kibana navigation bar to display in embedded views. This exposes internal UI elements to your customers, a regression that remained in production.

<!-- What you want -->
<iframe src="https://kibana:5601/app/dashboards#/view/abc?embed=true">

<!-- What Kibana 8.15.x generates -->
<iframe src="https://kibana:5601/app/dashboards#/view/abc">
<!-- Full nav bar visible to customers -->

Limitation 2: Multi-Tenancy Requires Manual Configuration Per Customer

If you have 100 customers, each needing to see only their data, Kibana requires extensive manual configuration.

Spaces Alone Don’t Provide Data Isolation

A critical fact from Elastic’s documentation: Spaces alone don’t prevent you from seeing other customers’ information. Spaces provide organizational separation for dashboards and visualizations, but not true data isolation.

To achieve actual multi-tenancy, you need to combine:

• Kibana Spaces (one per customer)
• Elasticsearch role-based access control
• Index-level permissions with document-level security
• Custom role definitions per tenant

The Configuration Burden

For each new customer, you must:

# 1. Create a Kibana Space
POST /api/spaces/space
{
  "id": "tenant-acme",
  "name": "Acme Corporation"
}

# 2. Create an Elasticsearch role with data filtering
PUT /_security/role/tenant_acme_role
{
  "indices": [{
    "names": ["logs-*"],
    "privileges": ["read"],
    "query": {"term": {"tenant_id": "acme"}}
  }]
}

# 3. Create and assign users to the role
# 4. Copy dashboard templates to the Space
# 5. Configure index patterns in the Space

Multiply this by hundreds of customers. Then maintain it as customers change, dashboards update, and Kibana versions upgrade.

Limitation 3: Security Misconfigurations Are Easy and Dangerous

Kibana’s security model is powerful but complex. In a customer-facing context, this complexity creates risk.

Common Security Issues

Misconfigurations occur when:

• Security features aren’t fully enabled
• User roles lack necessary permissions
• Document-level security queries have errors
• Index patterns expose unintended data

Real-world failure pattern:

One missing filter in a role definition can expose months of another customer’s data. You won’t know until a customer reports seeing someone else’s information or worse, doesn’t report it.

Limitation 4: White-Labeling Is Essentially Impossible

Your customers expect analytics that look native to your product. Kibana makes this extremely difficult.

What You Can’t Remove or Customize

• Kibana logo and branding
• Navigation elements and menus
• Default color schemes
• “Powered by Elastic” attributions
• Kibana-specific UI patterns

Why CSS Hacks Don’t Work

/* This doesn't work - cross-origin iframes are isolated */
iframe[src*="kibana"] .kibana-header {
  display: none !important;
}

Browser same-origin policies prevent CSS or JavaScript injection.

Limitation 5: Performance Tax on Embedded Dashboard

Kibana’s UI was built for power users on internal networks, not customer-facing embedded contexts.

Bundle Size and Load Times

Limitation 6: No SDK for Programmatic Control

// What you want (SDK approach)
const dashboard = new AnalyticsSDK({
  container: '#analytics',
  tenantId: user.organizationId,
  onChartClick: (data) => navigateToDetail(data.id)
});

// What Kibana gives you
const url = `https://kibana:5601/app/dashboards?embed=true`;

When Kibana Actually Makes Sense

Kibana is the right choice when:

• Internal teams only
• Single tenant
• Technical users
• No embedding required
• Budget constraints

What Customer-Facing Elasticsearch Analytics Actually Requires

The Bottom Line

Kibana is a powerful tool for internal use. For customer-facing analytics, every workaround costs engineering time that should be spent shipping product.

Frequently Asked Questions

Next Steps

Already frustrated with Kibana embedding?

• Read: Best Tools for Elasticsearch Analytics
• Explore: Kibana Alternative
• See how: The Complete Guide to Embedded Analytics

Request a Demo → See Customer-Ready Elasticsearch Analytics

Related Resources

• What is Elasticsearch? Complete Guide for 2025
• Elasticsearch Aggregations Guide
• How to Join Elasticsearch with Other Datasources
• SSO vs Secure URL Embedding