Evidence vs Sisense

Evidence is an open-source business intelligence framework built around the idea of BI as code. Analysts write reports as Markdown files with embedded SQL queries and ready-made components for charts, tables and big numbers, and Evidence builds them into a fast static website. The project is MIT licensed and backed by a venture-funded company that also runs a hosted service.

Evidence connects to common warehouses and databases including Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres, MySQL and DuckDB, as well as CSV files. Query results are cached and processed in the browser with DuckDB, so pages stay quick once built. Templated pages generate one report per customer, region or product from a single file, loops and conditionals add logic, and everything lives in git, so changes go through pull requests and code review. The open-source framework is free to self-host; Evidence Cloud adds managed builds, hosting, scheduled refreshes and authentication.

Evidence fits data teams that already think in SQL and git and want polished, reproducible reports such as board packs, KPI sites or customer-facing data pages. It is not a self-serve tool for business users who want to drag fields onto a chart. Metabase and Looker Studio are better for ad hoc exploration, Lightdash builds BI directly on dbt models, and Observable Framework is the closest alternative for code-first data apps with more JavaScript flexibility.

Sisense is a business intelligence and embedded analytics platform founded in Tel Aviv in 2004 and now headquartered in New York. It merged with Periscope Data in 2019 and is led by CEO Ariel Katz, who previously helped build Power BI at Microsoft. Its core job today is embedded analytics: letting software companies ship dashboards, reports and AI-driven insights inside their own products, white-labeled for their customers.

Sisense connects to cloud warehouses and databases either live or through its ElastiCube data engine, then builds dashboards with drag-and-drop widgets. Developers embed them with iframes or the Compose SDK, a code-first toolkit for React, Angular and Vue. Sisense Intelligence adds natural-language queries, auto-generated narratives and an assistant end users can talk to. Packaging has two tracks: a Self-serve plan you can start for free, and Enterprise with multi-tenancy, column-level security, SSO and on-prem or dedicated cloud hosting.

Sisense fits SaaS companies that sell analytics as a feature and need tight control over tenants and branding. It is a weaker fit for internal-only reporting, where Power BI or Tableau offer more analysts, training and lower per-seat costs, and for tight budgets, where Metabase's open-source embedding or Looker Studio's free tier go further.

Buying tip: Sisense does not publish prices, and third-party reports put cloud contracts in the five figures per year. Get the tenant count, user model and AI usage limits written into the quote, and ask how AI features are billed.