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Today’s businesses are drowning in data and many of them have no actionable way of viewing or using it. This is one of the reasons why there are so many business intelligence and data analytics tools in the market, all promising intuitive analytics and ease of use.
One of them is Metabase, a product that “helps everyone explore and learn from data without using SQL”. It is open source, easy to use, and allows even those without any knowledge of code to do data analytics and visualizations.
But what if you’re looking for something more capable and with a different toolset? Here are the top Metabase alternatives to consider in 2023.
But first…
Metabase is a business intelligence and data analytics app that promises anyone to answer questions about their data - in under 5 minutes and without the knowledge of SQL.
Data exploration really is intuitive and with the visual builder, you don’t need an in-house data scientist to get started on your first dashboard. There are a few different ways to share them, from the standard links all the way to embedding them in your product.
You can connect Metabase with your favorite SSO and handle user permissions for viewing those dashboards quite effortlessly compared to some other competitors which we’ll talk about in a minute.
Pricing is another major upside to Metabase because you can get the open-source version of the tool entirely free. Paid plans start at $85 per user per month, going up to $15,000 annually for the enterprise version of the tool.
Users praise its relative ease of use, the fact that it’s open-source, the availability of different customization options, and the ease of connecting various data sources, KPIs and metrics.
Not everything is ideal with this tool and despite its ease of use, there are some common complaints that many customers have.
For example, there are multiple mentions of the tool being slow and cumbersome if you have a lot of data that you’re working with or importing from another tool. Not only will the tool take a bit to process the data initially, but loading it in dashboards is also going to take more time.
The second issue is that even though Metabase claims that no SQL is required, that’s not entirely true. While you can create basic reports and dashboards without using this language, any automation that is more complex and custom in nature will in fact require you to know something about SQL databases and SQL queries.
Also, ease of use comes at a cost and that is the lack of customization. Advanced users with SQL knowledge can go beyond the basic customization options provided in the visual editor. If you’re not well-versed in SQL, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to editing your reports and dashboards.
Moreover, Metabase does not support multiple SQL databases as sources. This means that you need a data warehouse to have all of your data in one place, rather than pulling multiple data sets at once from more sources.
In short, some of the basic selling points of this tool - the ease of use, customization, no need of SQL knowledge - are not actually there.
Let us take a look at some alternatives instead.
Metabase does some things well but you may be looking for a completely different toolset, better pricing or ease of use. Here are some competitors you should consider as an alternative to Metabase.
Need a tool that is actually easy to use and lets you build dashboards in hours and not days or weeks? Luzmo was built with busy data and product teams in mind, allowing them to quickly connect their data sources and visualize that data in customizable, interactive dashboards.
Simply connect your sources with our extensive list of connectors or our flexible API and you’re halfway done. You can then choose from a number of dashboard templates to find the one that best suits your use and your product.
Speaking of which - Luzmo is ideal for SaaS teams that want an embedded dashboard but don’t want to spend the time and resources to develop it in-house. Once the dashboard is ready, even a beginner developer can embed it into your product so that it looks like it was always there. It’s as no-code as it can get and even non-technical users can master the typical workflow of creating a stunning dashboard.
And besides offering embedded dashboards for the customers who use your product, Luzmo allows your customers to edit those dashboards to show the data that they really need.
Prices start at $950 per month and a free trial is available.
Best for: SaaS teams that need intuitive, yet advanced embedded analytics without spending a fortune on developing them in-house.
If you’re looking for something that is free and (sort of) easy to use and you don’t require data modeling, this just might fit the bill. Looker Studio (previously known as Google Data Studio) is Google’s product built for creating reports and dashboards, primarily from Google’s own sources: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google My Business.
It allows you to use a number of pre-built templates and create reports and dashboards that can be easily shared internally or with your clients and customers. With a little bit of tinkering and customization, you can build truly remarkable reports, but with a limited use case.
Looker Studio is only free for the Google suite of products (in terms of datasets you can pull for the sources), and for everything else, you’re going to have to pay for third-party connectors. Moreover, the support is practically non-existent and you’re going to troubleshoot problems on your own pretty often. Last, but not least, it’s not ideal for an embedded analytics use case.
Best for: marketers and agencies that rely heavily on Google products as sources for creating reports and dashboards.
It’s hard to talk about data analytics and visualization without mentioning Tableau, one of the giants in the industry that is currently owned by Salesforce. If you do advanced data modeling and analysis and you need highly customizable, attractive visualizations, this BI tool is one of the first choices to consider.
However, Tableau is on the opposite scale of Metabase when it comes to ease of use. While it is incredibly powerful and has a wide array of visualization options, Tableau requires a seasoned data analyst in your team to get the most use out of it. For beginners, it has a very steep learning curve.
Instead of SQL, Tableau uses its own language called VisQL, which is similar but has quite a few differences too. You can ask the tool to provide data insights in plain English, but for anything more complex, you’re going to need someone skilled in this language.
Moreover, Tableau is much more complex to use as an embedded dashboard tool compared to tools like Luzmo. Getting a dashboard to work in your tool and look the part is going to be anything but a walk in the park.
Last but not least, Tableau is known to be quite expensive - if you can get to the actual pricing since the company is not very transparent about its pricing.
Best for: Enterprise businesses that have data teams with daily needs for data exploration, modeling, and visualization.
If you like Tableau’s ease of use but need something that is self-hosted and a bit easier to use, Domo is a solid choice. This BI and data analytics tool has a large choice of connectors and APIs, allowing you to plug countless data sources to your dashboards.
Much like Tableau, it offers a massive variety of visualizations, including 150+ chart types and graphs and the ability to customize dashboards and tell interactive stories rather than presenting passive data.
On the other hand, unlike Tableau, Domo is primarily a web-based tool. It even comes with iOS and Android mobile apps so you can easily share your visualization with your team or your customers on the go.
Like many of its competitors, Domo is not very transparent when it comes to pricing, so you’ll have to reach out to get a personalized quote. However, some sources state that the pricing starts at $750 annually for one user.
Best for: enterprise users with advanced data analytics needs and a huge variety of options for visualization.
Another competitor in the embedded analytics space is Sisense - a tool with a superb dashboard builder that lets you customize your dashboards to great lengths.
There are some ways to connect your data but aside from the internal connectors, the API access is limited. You have some access to dashboard templates but the choice is not as varied as with some other tools in this sphere.
Another issue is that Sisense has frequent downtimes and there is a complete lack of transparency about those downtimes anywhere on their website. Last but not least, you can indeed create beautiful dashboards, but embedding them into your SaaS product won’t go as smoothly as you might hope because of multi-tenancy issues.
Pricing is not available publicly, but various sources state that the best you can hope for is a minimum of $25k per year for Sisense.
Best for: Seasoned SaaS tools that have a big budget and patience for frequent downtimes.
If you’re already heavily invested in Microsoft’s products, using PowerBI for data analytics, visualizations, and dashboards is a logical choice. Instead of the more commonly used SQL in Metabase, PowerBI uses Microsoft’s proprietary language, DAX. It’s primarily meant to be used on-premises, with many customers primarily using the desktop version of the tool.
While this is an extremely powerful analytics platform, the specialist programming language might require frequent calls for help to Microsoft, or hiring a PowerBI specialist to make the data analysis job easier. It may sound like Excel on steroids, but this is complex business intelligence software that requires some time to get familiar with it.
Once you get past the initial learning curve, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how easy PowerBI can be to use and navigate. Creating complex real-time dashboards and reports is effortless thanks to its drag-and-drop builder and a large choice of data connectors.
PowerBI pricing starts as low as $10 per user per month, but this can get you the basic functionalities such as a refresh rate of 8 times a day and 1GB of storage. Also, you’ll need to pay for an additional license for every viewer. Embedded analytics has a completely different price point and it starts at $735 per month. This is primarily a business intelligence platform and visualization of complex data in embedded dashboards is not the intended use case for most business users.
Best for: Enterprise users who are already deep into the Microsoft ecosystem and have a specialist on board with knowledge of DAX.
Unlike some business intelligence tools on this list, Explo was primarily built for analytics and data visualization with embedded dashboards. It’s fairly easy to use and comes packed with a solid set of data connectors.
You can share your dashboard in a variety of ways, from emails and links and all the way to getting them embedded into your web page or SaaS product.
However, it also comes with its own set of issues. Customers frequently complain about the lack of customization options. Also, it is not exactly rich in features compared to other cloud-based analytics tools on this list.
You can use Explo completely free if you intend to create and view dashboards internally and share them with your team. The cheapest plan starts at $695 per month, getting you access to a few dashboard templates and 25 user groups.
Best for: Data-driven SaaS companies looking for an entry-level data visualization tool.
Metabase is by no means a bad tool and it actually boasts many features that make it stand out against the competition. However, those features do not really work as advertised. These alternatives work for a variety of use cases and you can surely find something that meets your requirements in this list.
And if you’re looking for a tool to help you with embedded analytics in your SaaS tools - look no further. Sign up for a free trial of Luzmo to find out how quickly and easily you can build a SaaS dashboard for your users!
Experience the power of Luzmo. Talk to our product experts for a guided demo or get your hands dirty with a free 10-day trial.
