# Visualize REST API calls? **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [March 2, 2020, 11:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667 "2020-03-02T11:30:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mattness](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mattness/32/52975_2.png) [@Mattness](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mattness)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 11:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/1 "2020-03-02T11:30:27Z")
Is it possible to directly visualize REST API calls, without resorting to monitoring methods like metricbeat monitoring or xpack internal collection? E.g. could I just make a visual out of this call: "GET \_cluster/health" ? Edit: Afterthought: if visuals are not possible, any other possibility to display the call in a kibana dashboard is also of interest to me. Regards ---
**Author:** ![flash1293](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/flash1293/32/41227_2.png) [@flash1293](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/flash1293)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/2 "2020-03-05T10:42:06Z")
You can't visualize arbitrary API calls in Kibana directly out of the box. I see two possibilities to realize this. - Develop your own custom visualization type. As you are in full control of the visualization, you can also issue arbitrary requests - Put together a script outside of Kibana which periodically runs, calls the API and ingests the result into Elasticsearch in a separate index. Then you can use the regular visualization types on top of that index. As a side node - if your actual use case _is_ visualizing the health or other properties of your Elasticsearch cluster (and not just an example for illustration), the [stack monitoring solution](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/elasticsearch-metrics.html) might be of interest for you. ---
**Author:** ![Mattness](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mattness/32/52975_2.png) [@Mattness](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mattness)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 12:27pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/3 "2020-03-05T12:27:55Z")
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. Can I export parts of the stack monitoring into custom dashboards? I want to create a kind of "custom stack monitoring" because the actual one is a little too cluttered for my taste. I am only interested in the general status bars and maybe about 5 graphs. I want to display this in a custom dashboard and be able to export it e.g. as an iframe. So far I have tried to recreate the stack-monitoring and have mostly succeeded but a few open ends still remain. ---
**Author:** ![flash1293](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/flash1293/32/41227_2.png) [@flash1293](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/flash1293)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/4 "2020-03-05T12:45:27Z")
To do this you unfortunately have to take the approach with the periodically running script re-ingesting the information relevant to you - stack monitoring is not customizable to that degree ---
**Author:** ![Mattness](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mattness/32/52975_2.png) [@Mattness](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mattness)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/5 "2020-03-05T12:51:38Z")
That figures. Thanks for clarifying that 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/visualize-rest-api-calls/221667/6 "2020-04-02T12:51:51Z")
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