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Business Intelligence & Dashboards

Metabase

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Metabase, Inc. · www.metabase.com

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Metabase at a glance

Vendor
Metabase, Inc.
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
Starting price
“Starter $100 / month” (vendor’s words) source, captured 1 Nov 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Metabase 3.5/5, the mean of 6 judges. Metabase is a business intelligence product that queries 18 official database and warehouse connectors live, with a no-SQL query builder and a SQL editor. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 1 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 1 Nov 2026. all sources

Metabase alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The IT Administrator

Weighted verdict

IT lead at a mid-sized healthcare supplier whose reports touch customer, pricing and employee data. Is asked to approve a BI tool after a department has already started a trial. Reads where extracts and caches are stored, whether the tool reaches the ERP database through a gateway or wants it opened to the internet, whether sales sees only its own region, and whether single sign-on and an audit log come with the plan or behind a sales call. Prefers an edition they can run themselves.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The IT Administrator

Panel median The IT Administrator This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The IT Administrator
Data sources, connectors & refresh 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Dashboards, charts & interactivity 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Self-service analysis & shared metrics 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Sharing, scheduled reports & embedding 4 of 5 4 of 5
Access control, administration & portability 4 of 5 4 of 5
European sovereignty 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Pricing transparency 4 of 5 4 of 5

Data sources, connectors & refresh

How this is scored

Which data the product can reach and how it stays current: native connectors to databases and warehouses (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, BigQuery, Snowflake), to business applications (accounting, ERP, CRM, shop, help desk, ad platforms) and to files and spreadsheets (Excel, CSV, Google Sheets), live queries versus imported extracts, scheduled and incremental refresh with its minimum interval, joining data from several sources, light data preparation, access to databases behind a firewall (gateway, SSH tunnel, IP allow-list), and a generic REST or custom connector for what is not listed.

0 — Not a reporting product, or data can only be typed or pasted in by hand.

3 — Spreadsheet and file uploads plus a handful of named connectors; refresh schedules, live queries and blending sources are basic or not described.

5 — A published connector list covering the common databases, warehouses, spreadsheets and several named business applications, scheduled refresh with its interval stated, live queries or extracts at the customer's choice, data from two sources combined in one report, and a documented way to reach a database behind a firewall.

8 — Hundreds of maintained connectors or a full SQL layer over every major warehouse, incremental refresh and caching explained, a built-in data preparation or modelling step, a gateway or agent for on-premise sources, a generic REST or custom connector SDK, and connector limits (rows, API calls, history) stated per plan.

10 — Connectivity an organisation can standardise on: every source reachable live or by extract with the trade-offs documented, refresh down to minutes with lineage from report back to source, source changes detected and reported, and connector behaviour, quotas and failure handling published.

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The IT Administrator

Eighteen maintained connectors cover PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks and more, with eleven community drivers that work only when self-hosting; queries run live against our databases and nothing is stored unless we enable caching, which is the architecture I want for the ERP system. An SSH tunnel, five SSL modes up to verify-full with client certificates, and IP allowlisting are documented, joins and multi-level aggregation combine sources in one question, and models can be persisted and refreshed on a schedule we define. We found no public information on a generic REST or custom connector SDK or per-plan connector limits, and the integrations catalog offers tool-by-tool guides for Stripe, Google Analytics, HubSpot and Shopify rather than native connectors to business applications. 6 5 15 3 7 8

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Dashboards, charts & interactivity

How this is scored

What can be built and how readers use it: the range of chart types, tables and pivot tables, maps, KPI tiles with targets and comparisons, dashboard layout, filters and date controls that apply across a dashboard, drill-down and drill-through, cross-filtering by clicking a chart, templates for common sources, mobile and TV display, theming to the company's design, number formatting and localisation (decimal comma, currencies, German date formats), and accessibility of the result.

0 — No charts or dashboards; the product only stores or moves data.

3 — Standard bar, line and pie charts and a table on a dashboard; filters, drill-down and mobile display are basic or not described.

5 — A broad chart library with pivot tables, maps and KPI tiles with comparison to a previous period or target, dashboard-wide filters and date ranges, drill-down, templates for common sources, a mobile view, and number and date formats localised.

8 — Cross-filtering and drill-through between dashboards, custom visuals or a chart SDK, conditional formatting and annotations, dashboards themed to a brand, TV and presentation modes, pixel-exact or paginated reports for print, and accessibility of charts documented.

10 — Dashboards that a whole organisation reads daily: every interaction (filter, drill, cross-filter, parameter) available to readers without editor rights, performance on large data stated, accessibility conformance (WCAG) published, and every chart reproducible from a documented query.

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The IT Administrator

Interactivity is documented in depth: clicking a chart, column header or table cell opens a drill-through menu with Filter by this value, See these records, Break out by and Zoom in, alongside cross-filtering, drag-to-filter on time series, custom click behaviour to other questions or dashboards, and dashboard-wide filter widgets of date, location, number, text and boolean types with defaults, required values and per-user scope. Charts evidenced include bar, line and area series with goal lines, histograms, progress bars against a goal, and maps with zoom-in. We found no public information on the breadth of the chart library, pivot tables, mobile or TV display, templates, or accessibility of the charts. 17 16 21 20 2

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Self-service analysis & shared metrics

How this is scored

Whether people outside the data team can answer their own questions and whether everyone gets the same answer: a visual query builder, a SQL editor for analysts, calculated fields and formulas, a semantic layer or data model where metrics such as revenue or churn are defined once and reused, metric definitions under version control (Git, dbt integration), questions in natural language with the generated query shown, forecasting and anomaly detection with the method stated, and notebooks or Python for deeper analysis.

0 — Dashboards can only be viewed; no one can ask a new question of the data.

3 — Charts are configured from a field list and simple calculated fields; shared metric definitions, SQL and a query builder are basic or not described.

5 — A visual query builder for business users and a SQL editor for analysts, calculated fields and formulas, saved questions reused across dashboards, a data model or dataset layer where joins and metrics are defined once, and natural-language questions that show the query they ran.

8 — A semantic layer with governed metrics and dimensions reused across every report, definitions in code under Git version control or synced with dbt, certified or endorsed datasets, forecasting and anomaly detection with the method stated, and Python or notebook analysis beside the dashboards.

10 — Self-service that stays consistent at scale: every metric defined once and traced to every chart that uses it, changes reviewed and tested before they reach readers, AI answers grounded in the semantic layer with their limits documented, and the model exportable in an open format.

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The IT Administrator

A point-and-click query builder for business users sits beside a SQL editor, with custom expressions like CountIf and SumIf, joins, multi-level aggregation, preview-as-you-build and fifteen saved versions per question. Metrics and measures form a semantic layer with official shared formulas that immediately propagate to every question using them, verification on Pro and Enterprise, a metrics explorer for breakouts, comparisons and maths between metrics, and Git sync for measures on published tables; Metabot answers questions in plain English. We found no public information on forecasting or anomaly detection methods, notebooks or Python, or whether AI answers show the query they ran. 3 18 19 5 1 2

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Sharing, scheduled reports & embedding

How this is scored

How results reach the people who need them: sharing a dashboard with colleagues and with external parties, public or password-protected links, scheduled reports by email or chat (Slack, Microsoft Teams) as PDF, image or data, threshold alerts, comments and annotations, export to PDF, PowerPoint and Excel, embedding dashboards in an intranet, a website or the company's own software product, white-label options, and per-customer data separation for embedded use.

0 — Results cannot leave the editor; no sharing, export or embedding.

3 — Dashboards shared with other users of the account and exported to PDF or CSV; scheduled reports, alerts and embedding are basic or not described.

5 — Sharing with colleagues and by link, scheduled email reports with PDF or image, alerts when a metric crosses a threshold, export to PDF and Excel, and dashboards embedded in a website or intranet with an iframe or script.

8 — Reports delivered to Slack or Microsoft Teams, comments and annotations on dashboards, signed embedding with row-level filtering per viewer, an embedding SDK for a software product with white-label styling, client or guest portals, and an embedding licence model documented.

10 — Distribution as a product: multi-tenant embedded analytics with per-customer data isolation, theming and custom domains, end-user self-service inside the host application, every delivery channel automatable through an API, and usage of shared and embedded content reported to the customer.

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The IT Administrator

Alerts deliver by email, Slack or webhook on schedules down to the minute or a custom Quartz cron, with goal-line and progress-bar triggers, one-time alerts and admin bulk management, and dashboard subscriptions carry results by email and Slack. Embedding is thoroughly documented: view-only and interactive charts, guest and full-app embedding, a React SDK, locked parameters set server-side so an embed on customer 13's account page returns only customer 13's orders, per-viewer data permissions on SSO embeds, white-label styling, and embedding priced from $575 / month. We found no public information on the file formats of downloadable results, or on comments and annotations on dashboards. 21 20 5 7 23

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Access control, administration & portability

How this is scored

What a company needs before it gives the tool to everyone, and what leaving would cost: roles and folder or workspace permissions, row-level and column-level security, single sign-on (SAML, OpenID Connect) and user provisioning (SCIM), audit logs and usage analytics, content certification and lifecycle, environments for development and production, a public REST API for administration and content, export of dashboards and definitions in a reusable format, open-source code, and a self-hosted or on-premise edition the customer runs on its own servers.

0 — A single shared login with no permissions; dashboards cannot be exported or administered.

3 — Users with view and edit rights; row-level security, single sign-on, an API and export of definitions are basic or not described.

5 — Roles and folder or workspace permissions, row-level security documented, single sign-on on at least one stated plan, an audit log, a documented REST API, and dashboards and data exportable on termination.

8 — Column-level security and data permissions inherited from the source, SAML and SCIM provisioning, usage analytics for admins, development and production environments or content promotion, dashboards and definitions as code that can be versioned and moved, and a self-hosted or on-premise edition with its own documentation.

10 — Governance and an exit that can be verified: open-source code under a named licence that runs fully self-hosted with feature parity stated, every object (data model, dashboards, permissions) exportable in a documented format another instance imports, audit logs streamed to the customer's own systems, and deletion of every copy on termination documented.

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The IT Administrator

Permissions reach database, table, schema, row and column level with groups and collection controls, a comprehensive audit log with alerts on unusual activity, usage analytics, and a documented REST API with OpenAPI spec and API keys, while SSO with a provider and required 2FA arrive from Pro upward. Row and column security is documented in detail, including its own stated limits — it applies to query-builder questions, native SQL results are not secured, public links are not covered — and impersonation pushes permissions down to our database roles. The application is AGPL-licensed, self-hosting by Docker, JAR or Podman has its own documentation, and staging environments with exported configs, models and dashboards plus stable entity IDs support moving content between instances; we found no public information on SCIM provisioning or on streaming audit logs to our own systems. 4 22 23 15 5 7 10 13 8 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where the connected business data is queried, cached, extracted and stored, and who the subprocessors are (hosting, query engine, AI model providers, email delivery of reports, support and payment tools). Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; a BI tool reads revenue, customer and employee data from many systems, so every place a copy or cache lands counts, not only the account database. A self-hosted or open-source edition the customer runs on its own European servers counts as the customer's chain, whatever the vendor's seat.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist, but hosting location is unstated or non-EU and the subprocessors are not listed.

5 — EU hosting available and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, but parts of the chain (query engine, extracts and caches, AI features, report emails, support, payment) run through non-EU providers without a stated safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessors listed with their locations, a data processing agreement published, where extracts and caches are stored stated, and security certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) stated — or a self-hosted edition documented that keeps every query and cache on the customer's own servers.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor including AI features, or a self-hosted open-source edition with no call home, data export and deletion documented, and certifications published with their scope rather than implied.

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The IT Administrator

The contracting entity is Metabase, Inc. under California law, but Metabase Cloud offers a Europe (Frankfurt) region, each cloud customer runs in its own containers with no shared clusters, and unless results caching is enabled none of the data returned by our database is stored on the vendor's side. The open-source edition we would run keeps everything on our own servers — "Your data stays on your servers—and in your control. We never look at or copy your data. Period." — with an air-gapped edition available on Enterprise for an additional fee. Subprocessors are reviewed before use and at least annually but are not listed with their locations on these pages, we found no public information on a published data processing agreement, and we found no public information on where the paid AI service processes data. 13 9 11 8 7

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: price per creator or editor seat and whether viewers are free or paid, capacity or usage pricing (rows, refreshes, queries, AI credits), which features (row-level security, SSO, embedding, API, more connectors, faster refresh) sit behind a higher tier or "contact sales", the price of embedding for external users, the self-hosted edition's licence, the free tier and its limits, minimum term and setup.

0 — No public prices at all; every customer is a sales call.

3 — A starting price or a free tier exists, but how cost scales with viewers, data volume or features is unclear.

5 — Tiers are public with their seat price and main inclusions, but at least one commonly needed piece (viewer seats, row-level security, SSO, embedding, extra connectors or refresh frequency) is unpriced or "on request".

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its scaling rule (creators, viewers, capacity, rows), viewer pricing stated, add-ons and usage overage priced, embedded and self-hosted pricing stated, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual cost derivable for a given number of creators and viewers, data volume and feature set, with every add-on, embedding, setup, support and overage fee and the cancellation and data-return terms published.

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The IT Administrator

Every plan is public: Starter at $100 / month with $6 per user / month after the first five included, Pro at $575 / month with $12 per user / month after the first ten included, Enterprise starting at $20,000 / year, storage at $2 for 1M rows beyond 1M free, transforms at $0.01 per run and advanced transforms at $0.02 per run after 1,000 included runs, AI at $3.75 per 1m tokens after 1M included, a 10% yearly saving, prorated billing, a free open-source edition, a 14-day trial and prices that exclude any applicable taxes. Everyone who signs in counts as a billed user with non-transferrable licences, which is a clear scaling rule I can budget from. Enterprise beyond its floor and the air-gapped option are priced by agreement, and we found no public information on a minimum term. 7 17 3

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Hosting location Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Hosting options Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Open source Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement Not determined — uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Metabase

Is Metabase European?

No. whats-best.ai classifies Metabase as Rest of world.

Where does Metabase store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026.

Does Metabase have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Metabase?

As of 1 Nov 2026, the panel rates Preset (Apache Superset) (3.5/5), Holistics (3/5) and Luzmo (3/5) highest among the other 15 Business Intelligence & Dashboards products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Luzmo (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Metabase alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Do you know more about Metabase? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (24)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Features page www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Features page (query builder) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Features page (permissions) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Features page (embedded analytics) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Integrations page (data sources) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Pricing page www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Documentation (self-hosting) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Documentation (cloud region) www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  10. 10 API documentation www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Security / trust page www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Privacy policy www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Terms of service www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Data sources, connectors & refresh — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  15. 15 Data sources, connectors & refresh — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  16. 16 Dashboards, charts & interactivity — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  17. 17 Dashboards, charts & interactivity — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  18. 18 Self-service analysis & shared metrics — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  19. 19 Self-service analysis & shared metrics — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  20. 20 Sharing, scheduled reports & embedding — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  21. 21 Sharing, scheduled reports & embedding — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  22. 22 Access control, administration & portability — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  23. 23 Access control, administration & portability — found from sitemap www.metabase.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →
  24. 24 Code repository (open-source licence) — found from the homepage github.com Checked 1 Nov 2026 Details →