Disclosure: This article is published by Upsolve AI. Where our product appears alongside others, the comparison is based on publicly available information as of November 2026.

The best Metabase alternatives for most teams are open source: Apache Superset for dashboards and embedding, Lightdash for dbt shops, Redash for SQL-only analysts and Evidence for reports as code. All four can be self-hosted. The old reason to leave no longer holds, though. Metabase now includes Metabot, AI-assisted SQL and an MCP server in every plan, including open source, so “it has no AI” is out of date. What still pushes teams out is narrower: row-level security that starts at $575 a month, joins limited to one database, modeling that isn’t code-first, and embedded seat billing.

Open Source and Self-Hosted Metabase Alternatives

Open source is why many teams picked Metabase, so start here. All four can run on your own infrastructure, with no license fee for the open source edition. What differs is how much you have to run: Superset needs a metadata database, web server and workers, while Evidence generates a static site.

Apache Superset and Preset: the closest open source match

Superset is the closest open source Metabase alternative for embedding, so try it first if open source was why you chose Metabase. It’s Apache 2.0 licensed. Its embedded SDK uses guest tokens, so viewers don’t need Superset accounts, and those tokens can carry row-level rules. Row-level security filters ship in the open source project, while Metabase charges for row security on signed-in users.

The trade-offs are real. There’s no built-in chat assistant: AI arrives through an MCP server that your admin deploys and your users connect to from Claude or ChatGPT. Metabase’s own comparison also calls out that heavier setup.

Preset is managed Superset: free for up to 5 users, then $20 per user per month billed annually, or $25 monthly.

Lightdash: you already model everything in dbt

If your metrics live in dbt, Lightdash reads them directly, so you don’t define them twice. The self-hosted edition is open source, but AI agents, MCP and embedding are paid features, and it needs a dbt project or Lightdash YAML.

The interesting number is the flat $3,000 a month for unlimited users. Metabase Pro passes that at about 212 accounts ($575 + 202 × $12 is $2,999). For an internal rollout across a mid-sized company on dbt, the tool with the higher entry price can be the cheaper one.

Redash: your analysts only want SQL

Redash is a BSD-licensed SQL editor with dashboards and 35+ data sources. It isn’t abandoned: v26.9.0 shipped in September 2026.

That release also shows the cost of free. It fixed 13 security advisories and tells every installation to upgrade, and self-hosting means owning that work. Its feature list doesn’t include AI, so it won’t help people who don’t write SQL.

Evidence: you want reports as code

Evidence is an MIT-licensed tool for building reports in SQL and markdown, and you can self-host the generated static site. It suits teams that want reports reviewed like any other code. Its hosted Team plan is $2,500 a month for unlimited users and 20,000 AI credits, but row-level rules and embedding are Enterprise only.

Why People Actually Leave Metabase in 2026

Many lists still repeat older complaints. Check them against the current product before you plan a migration.

What’s no longer true

• “No natural language querying.” Metabot answers questions in plain English, writes SQL, fixes query errors and works in Slack.

• “Embedding is just an iframe.” Modular embedding renders individual components, including the query builder and AI chat, in your own app. Static embedding is now deprecated.

• “You can’t white-label it.” You can, from the Pro plan at $575 a month.

What still is

Seat billing inside your product. Embedded AI chat needs signed-in viewers, and each one is a billable account. The numbers are in the embedded section below.

Security sits behind a price step. Row and column security is Pro and Enterprise only. It also has a limit worth knowing before you buy: groups with SQL editor access can bypass it, so SQL users need database impersonation instead.

One database at a time. The query builder only joins tables and saved questions from the same database. If revenue lives in Snowflake and product events in BigQuery, you move data first. Metabot’s SQL generation works inside the selected database too.

Metabot’s reach on large schemas. If you don’t name a table, Metabot only checks the first 100 tables in the selected database, and the docs warn it may then invent the tables it needs. On a warehouse with thousands of tables, that means curating aggressively or naming tables in every prompt.

Uncapped AI on the free edition. AI usage is unlimited by default, and the limits that change this require Pro. Watch for a conflict here: Metabase’s July 2026 alternatives post says token limits live “on every edition including self-hosted open source”. The v0.65 docs and the pricing page both say otherwise. Go by the docs, and on open source set a spend cap with your AI provider.

Self-hosting is still your job. The open source edition carries no license fee, but upgrades, backups and monitoring fall to you. Caching controls are a Pro feature, which matters because Metabase queries your warehouse live.

Which Alternative Fits Your Reason for Leaving

Start from your reason, then read that tool’s section.

Commercial Metabase Alternatives, and When to Stay

Hex: your analysts have outgrown dashboards

If the complaint is that Metabase can’t do Python or multi-step analysis, you want a notebook, not another BI tool. Hex costs $36 per editor on Professional and $75 on Team, with embedding as an Enterprise add-on. Our Hex comparison goes further.

Holistics: you want governed self-serve without running servers

Holistics starts at $800 a month for 10 users, then $12.50 per user, so it won’t reduce your seat bill internally. Its separate embedded plan is the draw: custom pricing with unlimited dashboard viewers, white-labeling and dynamic row-level permissions. Teams who liked Looker’s modeling should also read about Omni alternatives and Looker alternatives.

Upsolve: you want agents across warehouses or inside your product

A data agent is a different purchase from BI, so it has its own section below.

Or stay on Metabase

Often that’s the right call. Stay if your users are internal, your data sits in one warehouse, and non-technical people like the query builder. That simplicity is what Metabase’s reviewers praise most.

If seat cost is your only complaint, try guest embeds with locked filters before migrating. If hosting is the complaint, Metabase Cloud Starter costs $100 a month for 5 users, which is hard for a migration to beat.

What a Metabase Embedded Seat Really Costs

If you’re embedding analytics in your own product, the cost question changes. Metabase has two embedded authentication modes, and they behave like two different products.

Source: Metabase embedding docs and license terms. Guest embeds are view-only by design, because with no account Metabase can’t check permissions on a new query.

Metabase’s AI is free. The seat it needs inside your product is not.

Two billing details make this bigger than it looks, both from Metabase’s billing page:

• Dormant accounts bill. An account counts until it’s deactivated, even if nobody signs in. A customer user who opened your analytics page once costs $12 a month until you remove them.

• Instances add up. The tally works like COUNT, not COUNT DISTINCT, so the same email on two instances counts twice.

A worked example at 1,000 customer users

Assumptions: a B2B SaaS product with 1,000 customer users, monthly billing at list price, 20 dashboard loads per user per month. These usage numbers are illustrative, so swap in your own.

• Metabase Pro, SSO: $575 + (990 × $12) = $12,455. AI tokens are extra, through your provider or Metabase’s service at $3.75 per 1M tokens.

• Preset, embedded viewers: 20 packs of 50 × $500 = $10,000, before author seats. Preset’s page offers volume discounts of up to 90% on Enterprise, and notes viewers get limited interactivity.

• Lightdash Cloud Pro, per load: $3,000 + (19,000 × $0.05) = $3,950, using Lightdash’s add-on pricing. Requires a dbt project or Lightdash YAML.

• Metabase Pro, guest embeds: $575, with no viewer charge, view-only.

• Apache Superset, self-hosted: $0 license, plus your hosting and engineering time.

Two caveats keep this honest. These products don’t buy the same thing: a Metabase seat includes a query builder and drill-through, while Superset’s $0 leaves hosting and engineering to you. And Metabase’s docs tell high-volume embedders to consider Enterprise custom pricing, so $12,455 is a list price you would negotiate.

For more, see how embedded analytics tools price and the Metabase pricing breakdown.

When a Dedicated Data Agent Fits Better Than Metabase

If you mainly want a query builder and dashboards for analysts, Metabase is the more direct tool. A data agent is for when the job is dependable plain-English answers, wherever people work.

Upsolve fits better in four situations:

• Data across several warehouses. Upsolve works across Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift and Postgres at the same time, and its Data Plane lets you query across connected sources with SQL and AI.

• AI answers inside your product, priced by use. On Team, embedding, multi-tenancy, row-level security and RBAC are included, and customer users are created by your backend at sign-in with properties your row-level rules read. You pay by credits, not seats.

• Answers you can regression-test. Metabot’s docs ask you to double-check results and collect thumbs-up feedback. Upsolve’s Tests (in Beta) store a question with its reference SQL, grade answers against it, and can stop a failing version reaching production. Full SQL and prompt traces show how each answer was reached.

• The agent outside the BI tool. Questions can come from Slack, Teams, an embedded SDK or any MCP-compatible client.

No existing semantic layer is required to start.

Upsolve’s governed tier is Team at $2,000 a month with 10,000 credits (about 1,000 analytical questions) and $0.05 overage. Pro at $500 has no row-level security, RBAC or embedding. On-prem, VPC, SAML SSO and HIPAA are Enterprise. To try it on your own machine, Upsolve Local (early) runs the agent against PostgreSQL with your own AI key. If you need free software you can run at any scale, choose Superset or stay on Metabase. For the wider category, see what a data agent is and the AI analytics tools roundup.

Metabase Alternatives Compared

List prices as of November 2026. “Open source” means a free edition you can self-host.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the best replacement for Metabase?

It depends on why you’re leaving. Apache Superset is the best replacement for open source embedding, Lightdash for dbt teams, and a dedicated data agent such as Upsolve for AI answers across warehouses or inside a product. If your complaint is hosting or small-scale cost, Metabase Cloud or guest embeds may solve it without a migration.

Are there open source alternatives to Metabase?

Yes. The main ones are Apache Superset (Apache 2.0), Lightdash (open source core, dbt or YAML model), Redash (BSD-2) and Evidence (MIT). Superset is the closest in breadth. Each still needs someone to host and patch it.

What’s the best self-hosted alternative to Metabase?

Apache Superset for dashboards and embedding, Lightdash if you already use dbt, Redash for SQL-only teams, and Evidence for reports as code. Upsolve offers self-hosting on its Enterprise plan. In every self-hosted setup, upgrades, backups and monitoring are your job.

Is Metabase still free?

Yes. The open source edition is free under the AGPL, self-hosted, and includes Metabot if you bring your own AI provider. Row-level security, white-labeling, SSO embedding and AI usage limits need Pro at $575 a month. If you embed in your product without Pro, Metabase’s license terms mean either complying with the AGPL or keeping the “Powered by Metabase” logo.

Does Metabase have AI features?

Yes. Metabot handles natural-language questions, SQL generation and chart analysis, and an MCP server connects outside AI clients. All are included in every plan. You pay your AI provider for tokens, or use Metabase’s service on Cloud.

How much does Metabase cost for embedded analytics?

Pro is $575 a month with 10 users, then $12 per user, and every SSO-authenticated viewer counts. At 1,000 viewers that’s $12,455 a month at list price. Guest embeds don’t count as users, but they’re view-only and have no AI chat. Enterprise starts at $20,000 a year with custom embedding packages.

Can I migrate my Metabase dashboards to another tool?

Expect to rebuild most of them. SQL questions are the easiest to carry over, since the SQL still runs against the same warehouse, though Metabase-specific variables need rewriting. Query-builder questions and dashboard layouts generally need recreating. Lightdash lists automated migration from your current BI tool on paid plans, so ask any vendor to show it working on your actual content.

If your reason for leaving is multi-warehouse data or AI inside your product, you can see Upsolve’s pricing, start with the free 2,000 credits, or book a demo.

Sources

1. Metabase: How Metabase billing works: user accounts, embedding and AI. https://www.metabase.com/how-billing-works

2. Metabase: Pricing. https://www.metabase.com/pricing

3. Metabase: Embedding introduction, v0.65. https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/embedding/introduction

4. Metabase: Metabot documentation and current limitations. https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/ai/metabot

5. Metabase: AI usage controls. https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/ai/usage-controls

6. Metabase: Row and column security. https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/permissions/row-and-column-security

7. Metabase: Joining data. https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/questions/query-builder/join

8. Metabase: Licenses and terms. https://www.metabase.com/license

9. Metabase: Metabase alternatives: comparing platforms for AI analytics, July 2026. https://www.metabase.com/blog/metabase-alternatives

10. Apache Superset: Repository and license. https://github.com/apache/superset

11. Apache Superset: Embedded SDK README. https://github.com/apache/superset/blob/master/superset-embedded-sdk/README.md

12. Apache Superset: Security configurations, row level security. https://superset.apache.org/docs/security/

13. Apache Superset: Using AI with Superset. https://superset.apache.org/user-docs/using-superset/using-ai-with-superset/

14. Preset: Pricing. https://preset.io/pricing/

15. Lightdash: Pricing and plans. https://www.lightdash.com/pricing

16. Redash: GitHub releases, including v26.9.0. https://github.com/getredash/redash/releases

17. Evidence: Repository and license. https://github.com/evidence-dev/evidence

18. Evidence: Pricing. https://evidence.dev/pricing

19. Hex: Pricing. https://hex.tech/pricing/

20. Holistics: Pricing. https://www.holistics.io/pricing/

21. Upsolve AI: Pricing. https://upsolve.ai/pricing

22. Upsolve AI docs: Tests. https://docs.upsolve.ai/ai-agent-builder/tests

23. Upsolve AI docs: Roles and permissions. https://docs.upsolve.ai/ai-agent-builder/roles-and-permissions

24. Upsolve AI docs: Data Plane. https://docs.upsolve.ai/integrations/introduction

25. Upsolve AI docs: Run Upsolve locally. https://docs.upsolve.ai/local/quickstart