# Metabase

> The open source dashboard tool for asking questions of your own database

Category: Open source alternatives (https://aiarabicdev.com/alternatives)
Canonical page: https://aiarabicdev.com/alternatives/metabase
Tags: analytics, business-intelligence, dashboards, sql

Metabase connects to your databases and lets people build charts and dashboards without writing SQL, the work teams often buy Tableau, Looker or Power BI for. The open source edition is AGPL-3.0, while an enterprise edition and the hosted cloud are commercial.

## Facts

- Licence: AGPL-3.0, with an enterprise edition under a commercial license
- Language: Clojure
- Cost: Free core, paid tiers exist
- Self hostable: yes
- Added: 2026-10-25
- Last checked: 2026-10-25

## Links

- Website: https://www.metabase.com
- Source: https://github.com/metabase/metabase
- Docs: https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/

## Charts for people who do not write SQL

Point Metabase at PostgreSQL, MySQL, BigQuery, Snowflake or many other sources, and anyone on the team can filter, group and chart a table through a visual query builder. Analysts can drop into SQL when they need to, and the results become dashboards, scheduled reports and alerts.

Compared with Tableau or Power BI it is much simpler to set up: one Java application, usually run with Docker, and a first dashboard can exist the same afternoon. That simplicity is the point, and it suits startups and small teams far better than a heavy BI suite.

## Where it stops and what you pay

Metabase is not a full modelling layer like Looker's LookML, and its visualisations are simpler than Tableau's. Several features organisations ask for, such as SAML single sign on, row level permissions, white labelling and audit logs, are in the paid editions.

Self hosting is easy to start but has a classic trap: by default it stores its own settings and dashboards in a local H2 file, which can be lost or corrupted. For real use, point it at a PostgreSQL application database from day one, and give it a read only database user so dashboards cannot change your data.

## Reach for it when

- your team keeps asking a developer for numbers from the database
- you want dashboards on top of PostgreSQL or MySQL without a BI budget
- you want analytics that stay inside your own infrastructure

## Watch out for

- the default H2 application database is not for production, so use PostgreSQL from the start
- SSO, row level permissions and audit logs are paid features
- it has no deep modelling layer like Looker and fewer chart types than Tableau

## Get started

Run with Docker:

```sh
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name metabase metabase/metabase
```

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