5 Best Metabase Alternatives in 2026
Last updated 23 August 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team
We build SaturnSQL, one of the tools on this list
So read this with that in mind. We have tried to earn your trust instead of assuming it: every price below was checked against the vendor’s own pricing or project page and is dated, we say plainly where other tools beat us, and where you would be better off with something else we tell you which one.
Metabase is a good product, and its Open Source edition is free with unlimited users. Almost nobody arrives here because the software disappointed them. They arrive because of the steps: hosted Starter is $100 per month for five users, and row and column level permissions and SSO live in Pro at $575 per month for ten.
A note on who wrote this. We make a SQL editor, not a BI tool, and we are the smallest, least BI-shaped thing on this page. We have put ourselves fourth and spelled out what we do not do, because for most people reading this the right answer is Superset, or simply self-hosting Metabase.
First, the cheapest answer
If your only problem with Metabase is the bill, you may not need an alternative at all. Metabase’s Open Source edition is free and unlimited — the hosted plans buy you not having to run it, plus the Pro permission and SSO features. Before evaluating five other tools, price out what self-hosting Metabase actually costs you in infrastructure and attention. For a lot of teams that number is smaller than $1,080 a year, and it changes nothing about the product your users already know.
Pick by what matters to you
- Apache Superset, The free, self-hosted Metabase replacement, if you have the infrastructure
- SaturnSQL, Teams whose Metabase is really just scheduled SQL sent to Sheets and Slack
- Hex, SQL plus Python notebook work, and polished data apps
- Mode, Analyst-led reporting with a strong SQL editor underneath
- Redash, Self-hosted query sharing, if you accept the maintenance status
Feature comparison
| SaturnSQL | Metabase | Apache Superset | Redash | Mode | Hex | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboards for non-SQL users | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Non-technical question builder | — | ✓ | ~ | — | ~ | ~ |
| Free tier usable in production* | ~ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | ~ |
| Hosted, nothing to run* | ✓ | ✓ Paid | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shared query library | ✓ Paid | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scheduled queries* | ✓ Paid | ✓ | ~ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ Paid |
| Export to Google Sheets | ✓ Paid | — | — | — | ~ | — |
| Send to Slack | ✓ Paid | ✓ | — | ~ | ✓ | ✓ Paid |
| Python notebooks | — | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Row / column level permissions* | — | ✓ Paid | ✓ | ~ | ✓ Paid | ✓ Paid |
| PostgreSQL | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MySQL / MariaDB | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| BigQuery | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ClickHouse | ✓ | ~ | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | ~ |
| Snowflake | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Licence model | Subscription | Free OSS / sub | Free / OSS | Free / OSS | Free / sales | Subscription |
| Starting paid price | €19/user/mo | $100/mo (5 users) | Free | Free | Contact sales | $36/editor/mo |
✓ available · ✓ Paid = not on the free tier · Pro (beta) = Pro plan, limited beta · ~ partial · ? not documented by the vendor · — not available
- Free tier usable in production: Metabase, Superset and Redash are free but self-hosted. SaturnSQL’s free tier is 1 connection and 1 saved query. Hex Community is capped at 5 notebooks.
- Hosted, nothing to run: Metabase offers hosting from $100/mo; the free edition is self-hosted only.
- Scheduled queries: Hex gates scheduled runs and alerts to the $75/editor Team plan.
- Row / column level permissions: Metabase gates these to the Pro plan at $575/mo.
Prices checked 23 August 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page: SaturnSQL · Metabase · Apache Superset · Redash · Mode · Hex.
The 5 best Metabase alternatives
Apache Superset
Best for: The free, self-hosted Metabase replacement, if you have the infrastructureApache Superset is the closest open source equivalent to Metabase’s open source edition: free, unlimited, genuinely capable at dashboards and charts, and considerably more work to run.
Strong
- + Free under the Apache licence, no user limits, no commercial tier pushing you upward
- + Very rich charting, and a proper SQL Lab for analysts
- + Governed by the Apache Software Foundation rather than a single vendor
Limits
- − Meaningfully harder to deploy and operate than Metabase
- − The non-technical question builder is weaker than Metabase’s
- − No hosted option from the project itself
Pricing: Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence, self-hosted. Commercial hosting is available from third parties. pricing page, checked 23 August 2026.
SaturnSQL
Best for: Teams whose Metabase is really just scheduled SQL sent to Sheets and SlackSaturnSQL is not a BI tool and will not replace Metabase’s dashboards — it is the right answer only for the specific case where what you actually wanted was a shared SQL library and results delivered on a schedule, and the dashboards were incidental.
Strong
- + Shared query library, so a query outlives whoever wrote it
- + Scheduled delivery to Google Sheets and Slack at minute-level precision
- + Flat €19 per user per month, with no five-user minimum and no jump to a $575 tier for permissions
- + PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, SQL Server, Redshift, ClickHouse, BigQuery and DynamoDB
Limits
- − No dashboards for non-technical stakeholders, and no question builder — everyone here writes SQL
- − No semantic layer, no modelling, no drill-through
- − No self-hosting, and the free tier is a demo: 1 connection, 1 saved query
Pricing: Starter €19 per user per month, including scheduling. Pro €29 is in limited beta. Free tier is 1 connection and 1 saved query with no sharing. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
Hex
Best for: SQL plus Python notebook work, and polished data appsHex is a collaborative notebook workspace combining SQL, Python and no-code cells, and its interactive data apps are a better answer than Metabase dashboards for analytical storytelling — but scheduled runs and alerts are gated to the Team plan at $75 per editor per month.
Strong
- + SQL and Python in one notebook
- + Interactive data apps for stakeholders
- + Connects to most warehouses including Snowflake
Limits
- − Scheduling requires the $75 Team plan, not the $36 Professional plan
- − Notebook model is a steeper learning curve than a dashboard tool
- − Considerably more expensive per seat than Metabase Starter
Pricing: Community free (5 notebooks). Professional $36 per editor per month. Team $75 per editor per month, which is the cheapest plan that includes scheduled runs and alerts. Enterprise custom. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
Mode
Best for: Analyst-led reporting with a strong SQL editor underneathMode is a BI platform with a better SQL editor than Metabase and scheduled report delivery built in — worth checking the roadmap before standardising on it, as it was acquired by ThoughtSpot in 2023, the same company that shut down SeekWell.
Strong
- + Capable SQL editor, better than Metabase’s for analysts
- + Scheduled delivery by email, Slack and webhook
- + Rich charts and reports
Limits
- − Business plans go through sales, not self-serve, so there is no published price to compare
- − Owned by ThoughtSpot, which shut SeekWell down in 2026
- − Heavier than Metabase for simple dashboard needs
Pricing: Free Studio plan. Business plans via sales, with no published pricing. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
Redash
Best for: Self-hosted query sharing, if you accept the maintenance statusRedash is an open source query and dashboard tool you self-host, and it is still used widely — but Databricks acquired it in 2020, retired the hosted service, and development has been quiet since, so treat it as a stable tool rather than a growing one.
Strong
- + Free, open source and self-hosted
- + Query sharing and dashboards in one place, with a SQL-first bias Metabase does not have
- + Simple to reason about
Limits
- − Development has been quiet since the Databricks acquisition in 2020
- − The hosted service was retired; self-hosting is the only option
- − You run the infrastructure
Pricing: Open source, self-hosted. The managed service was retired after the Databricks acquisition. pricing page, checked 3 August 2026.
When a BI tool is the wrong shape
There is a pattern worth naming, because it is common and it wastes money. A team adopts Metabase to give stakeholders self-serve dashboards. Eighteen months later, nobody self-serves. What actually exists is thirty saved SQL questions, six of which run on a schedule and get emailed round, and a dashboard nobody has opened since the quarter it was built.
If that is your Metabase, you are paying for a BI platform to act as a query scheduler. The honest fix is not a cheaper BI tool — it is admitting the dashboards were never the point. That is the case SaturnSQL is built for: a shared query library where a saved query can run on a schedule and land in Google Sheets or Slack, at €19 per user per month with no five-user minimum.
And if the dashboards are the point — if non-technical people genuinely build their own questions — then none of that applies and you should stay on Metabase or move to Superset. We do not have a question builder, a semantic layer, or dashboards for people who do not write SQL, and we are not going to pretend the gap is small.
How we judged
We ranked on how completely each tool covers what Metabase is used for — dashboards for non-technical stakeholders, self-serve question building, and scheduled reporting — and we treated the pricing steps as a first-class feature, because that is what sends people looking. Metabase’s plan prices were read from its pricing page on 23 August 2026. Hex, Mode and Redash figures were verified on 3 August 2026, each linked from its entry above. Looker Studio is listed as context rather than ranked: it is free, but we could not read a current Looker Studio Pro price from a Google-owned page on 23 August 2026, and we would rather omit a number than publish one we have not sourced. We build SaturnSQL, so treat our verdict on ourselves with appropriate suspicion. See also SaturnSQL vs Metabase, SaturnSQL vs Mode and SaturnSQL vs Hex.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free Metabase alternative?
Apache Superset. It is free under the Apache licence with no user limits, has richer charting than Metabase and a proper SQL Lab, and is governed by a foundation rather than a company with a commercial tier to sell you. The trade is real: Superset is meaningfully harder to deploy and operate, and its non-technical question builder is weaker. Worth remembering that Metabase’s own Open Source edition is also free and unlimited — if cost is the only issue, self-hosting Metabase is the shortest path.
How much does Metabase cost?
The Open Source edition is free and unlimited if you self-host. Hosted Starter is $100 per month ($90 billed annually) including 5 users, then $6 per user per month. Pro is $575 per month ($517.50 billed annually) including 10 users, then $12 per user per month, and is where row and column level permissions, SSO and embedded analytics live. Enterprise is custom, starting at $20,000 per year. AI tokens, transforms and storage are billed on top of all of these.
Why do people look for Metabase alternatives?
Usually the pricing steps rather than the product. Free and self-hosted is generous; the first hosted tier is $100 per month for five users, and the features many teams assume are standard — row and column level permissions, SSO — sit in Pro at $575 per month. The second reason is a mismatch of shape: some teams adopted Metabase for dashboards and discovered their real need was analysts sharing SQL, which is a different tool.
Is Redash still a good Metabase alternative?
Only with your eyes open. Redash is free, open source, self-hosted and more SQL-first than Metabase, which suits analyst teams. But Databricks acquired it in 2020, retired the hosted service, and development has been quiet since. Treat it as stable rather than growing: fine if you want a tool that will keep doing what it does, risky if you expect it to gain features.
Metabase vs Superset — which should I choose?
If non-technical people will build their own questions, Metabase, comfortably — its question builder is the best in this category and Superset does not match it. If your users are analysts who write SQL and want richer charts, Superset is the stronger tool and costs nothing at any scale. The deciding factor is usually operational: Metabase is markedly easier to run, and if nobody on your team wants to own a Superset deployment, that answers it.
Is SaturnSQL a Metabase alternative?
Only for one specific case, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing. SaturnSQL is not a BI tool: no dashboards, no question builder for non-technical users, no semantic layer. It is a shared SQL library with scheduled delivery to Google Sheets and Slack at €19 per user per month. If your Metabase is genuinely used for dashboards, keep it. If what you actually built in Metabase was a set of SQL questions emailed round on a schedule, and the dashboards were incidental, that is the case where we fit.
Shared queries and scheduled reports, in the browser, from €19 per user per month.