Teams look past Metabase when embedded viewers inflate the per-user bill, when row-level permissions and SSO are needed but sit behind a $575 plan, or when they want a stricter governed model. Most go to Preset for another open-source core, to Omni or Looker for a code-reviewed model, and to Power BI for a Microsoft shop.
Visibility in our rankings can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within
the shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review or of this page. The first three alternatives
go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the
established names follow in their ranked order. How it works:
placement disclosure · editorial process.
What each alternative does differently
1. Preset
Managed cloud service for Apache Superset · United States
Managed Apache Superset. Starter is free for up to five users, and Professional is $20 per user a month billed annually. Embedded dashboards need viewer licenses from $500 a month for 50 viewers. Single sign-on and audit logs wait for Enterprise, so the gating resembles Metabase's.
Switch from Metabase if you want another open-source core with SQL-first charting and a free small-team tier.
Pricing: Free Starter plan for small teams; Professional plan priced per user per month; Enterprise on quote. (free plan)
Full review: #2 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Preset →
2. Omni
Semantic-layer BI with SQL and spreadsheet flexibility · United States
Built around a shared semantic model with git integration and a dbt integration, and offers a free trial. Its pricing page returned a not-found error when we fetched it, so no price is stated here. It connects to warehouses and several databases, not to every source Metabase does.
Switch from Metabase if your data team wants version-controlled metric definitions behind self-service questions.
Pricing: Annual subscription on a quote, with a free trial. (free trial)
Full review: #1 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Omni →
3. Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft's BI suite for reports, models and Fabric · United States
The Microsoft option. Pro is listed at $14 per user a month paid yearly and Premium Per User at $24, with a free account included in Fabric for authoring. Sharing needs a paid license for viewers, so cost follows headcount in the same way as Metabase's.
Switch from Metabase if your company runs on Microsoft 365 and wants modelling beyond a query builder.
Pricing: Free Desktop authoring tool; Pro listed at $14 per user per month and Premium Per User higher, with Fabric capacity priced separately. (free plan)
Full review: #6 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Microsoft Power BI →
4. Looker
Google Cloud's BI built on the LookML semantic layer · United States
Google Cloud's BI on the LookML modelling language. Standard, Enterprise and Embed editions each include 10 Standard Users and 2 Developer Users, and every price is Call sales. Models are written in code by developers, which Metabase's graphical approach avoids.
Switch from Metabase if metric logic must be written in code, reviewed and reused across hundreds of reports.
Pricing: Quote only, sold through Google Cloud with Standard, Enterprise and Embed platform editions plus developer, standard and viewer user licences; free trial on request. (free trial)
Full review: #8 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Looker →
5. Sigma
Spreadsheet-style analytics running live on the warehouse · United States
Warehouse-first, with a spreadsheet interface that can edit and write back to the warehouse. It runs live queries rather than connecting to any database, and its pricing page shows no prices, only a free trial. Metabase reaches a wider set of plain databases.
Switch from Metabase if your data sits in Snowflake or Databricks and finance staff think in spreadsheets.
Pricing: Annual subscription on a quote, generally based on creator seats and platform tier, with a free trial. (free trial)
Full review: #5 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Sigma →
6. ThoughtSpot
Search and AI-driven analytics on cloud warehouses · United States
Search and AI agents over the data. Essentials starts at $25 per user a month billed annually, for five to fifty users and up to 25M rows, and tokens are not metered. Pro and Enterprise are quoted. Metabase's query builder is point-and-click instead of search.
Switch from Metabase if business users would rather type a question than assemble one in a builder.
Pricing: Tiered plans with published entry pricing for smaller teams and quotes for enterprise, with a free trial. (free trial)
Full review: #11 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit ThoughtSpot →
7. Zoho Analytics
Self-service BI with built-in connectors and data prep · India
Tiered by users and data rows: Basic holds 2 users and 0.5 million rows, Standard 5 and 1 million, Premium 15 and 5 million, Enterprise 50 and 50 million. A 15-day trial needs no card. Cloud and on-premise are both offered, and extra rows are add-ons.
Switch from Metabase if you want plans bounded by rows and users instead of a base fee plus per-seat charges.
Pricing: Free plan for two users; published monthly tiers priced by users and data rows, with on-premises and enterprise options quoted. (free plan)
Full review: #4 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Zoho Analytics →
8. Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
Associative in-memory analytics from a BI incumbent · United States
Qlik Cloud Analytics is priced by data capacity. Starter is $300 a month for 10 users and 10 GB, Standard $825 a month from 25 GB with no cost for additional users, Premium $2,750 from 50 GB. That removes Metabase's per-user rule for viewers.
Switch from Metabase if many people need to view dashboards and you would rather pay for data volume.
Pricing: Qlik Cloud Analytics tiers priced by capacity and users, with a free trial; larger deployments on quote. (free trial)
Full review: #9 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense) →
9. Domo
All-in-one cloud platform from connectors to dashboards · United States
Credit-based pricing with unlimited users, a 30-day free trial with the full platform, and custom pricing afterward. It bundles data preparation and storage along with dashboards, whereas Metabase queries your own database. Credits make the bill depend on usage, not on seats.
Switch from Metabase if you want unlimited viewers and a single vendor for pipelines and dashboards.
Pricing: Consumption-based credit pricing on a quote, with a free trial. (free trial)
Full review: #10 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Domo →
10. Tableau
Visual analytics platform owned by Salesforce · United States
Owned by Salesforce, whose copyright appears on Tableau's help site. Its pricing pages refused our requests with Access Denied, so we state no price. Teams evaluating it should get a quote. It is a separate product line from Metabase's open-source edition and has no equivalent free self-hosted tier.
Switch from Metabase if analysts need deep visual exploration and the company already buys from Salesforce.
Pricing: Role-based per-user pricing; the Creator licence is listed at around $75 per user per month on annual billing, with cheaper Explorer and Viewer roles. (free trial)
Full review: #7 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Tableau →
11. Sisense
Embedded analytics and AI platform for software products · Israel
Aimed at software products that embed analytics. A self-serve plan starts with a free trial, and Enterprise runs on SaaS, dedicated cloud or on-prem with a 99.99% SLA. Embedding uses an iframe or the Compose SDK. Rates for the self-serve plan are not printed on its page.
Switch from Metabase if your main use is customer-facing analytics inside your own product and contract terms matter.
Pricing: Two routes: a self-serve plan that starts with a free trial, and an Enterprise plan sold on a quote. Self-serve rates are not printed in the pricing page we fetched. (free trial)
Full review: #12 of 12 in our ranking ·
Visit Sisense →
Questions and answers
Can I export my Metabase dashboards to another BI tool?
Not directly. Metabase serialization produces YAML for other Metabase instances and requires Pro or Enterprise. Results from each card can be downloaded as .csv, .xlsx or .json, and dashboards as PDF, but the queries and layouts must be rebuilt in the new tool.
Does leaving Metabase mean losing my data?
No. Metabase states that your data stays on your own servers and that it does not copy it unless you enable results caching. Your database is untouched when you stop using the tool. What you lose is the saved questions, models and permissions stored in its application database.
Can I keep running the open-source edition after I stop paying?
Yes for the Open Source edition, which is AGPL licensed and free. Enterprise features, such as row-level permissions and SSO, require the commercial license, and Metabase says Enterprise features cannot be used without it. Dropping from Pro to open source removes those features.
How much does Metabase cost compared with its alternatives?
Open Source is free, Starter is $100 a month with five users included, and Pro is $575 a month with ten users included, plus per-user charges beyond that. Alternatives price differently, for example Preset at $20 per user a month and Power BI Pro at $14. Several others are quote only.
Do embedded users count toward my Metabase bill?
Yes on Starter and Pro. The pricing page says users of your embeds count alongside your internal team. Everyone who signs in directly or through SSO is billed as a user. Open Source has free unlimited users, but is subject to the AGPL for embedding.
Is Metabase certified for security audits?
Metabase reports SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1 reports and says it is GDPR and CCPA compliant. Check these against your own requirements, and ask any replacement for the same reports, since the move may be reviewed by your security team.
