A monitoring system presents metrics or event data by monitoring state information of a computing system. In an embodiment, the monitoring system includes one or more processors that receive state information from an agent executing on the computing system. The state information describes a component of the computing system. In response to receiving the state information, the monitoring system generates aggregate state information based on the state information and prior state information previously received from the agent. The state information and prior state information may correspond to the same time period. The monitoring system generates subscribed state information from the aggregate state information. The subscribed state information is a subset of the aggregate state information selected using instructions of a client. The monitoring system sends the subscribed state information to the client to cause an update in a user interface presented by the client.