title: Advantage of avg_over_time(rate()) over rate() by itself?
body: <p>Usually my queries with counter metrics look like this:</p>
  <pre><code>rate(metric_total[5m])
  rate(metric_total[$__interval])
  </code></pre>
  <p>But while looking at various companies / teams using Prometheus and Grafana (for example the GitLab infrastructure team) I came across the following construct:</p>
  <pre><code>avg_over_time(recording_rule:rate_5m[$__interval])
  </code></pre>
  <p>So I would like to know: Is there an advantage to the second approach?</p>
  <hr />
  <p>Here is a concrete example: <a href="https://dashboards.gitlab.com/d/frontend-main/frontend-overview?orgId=1&amp;viewPanel=23" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://dashboards.gitlab.com/d/frontend-main/frontend-overview?orgId=1&amp;viewPanel=23</a></p>