Lightdash vs Sisense
Lightdash and Sisense are both BI & dashboards tools. Lightdash is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Sisense is aimed at enterprise and developers. Only Lightdash has a free plan.
Lightdash
BI built on dbt metrics
Sisense
Embedded analytics platform for putting dashboards inside your product
| Pricing | Open source · $3000 | Paid |
| Starting price | $3000/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | 21 days | — |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses | Enterprise, Developers, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | GB · 2020 | US · 2004 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Lightdash if
Data teams using dbt who want a semantic-layer BI.
- Governed metrics in code
- Tight dbt integration
- Unlimited viewers
Look elsewhere if: Teams without dbt (Metabase).
Choose Sisense if
SaaS companies that want to sell secure, white-labeled analytics inside their own product.
- Built specifically for customer-facing embedded analytics
- Code-first SDK gives developers fine control over the UX
- Strong multi-tenancy and security for B2B SaaS products
Look elsewhere if: Teams that only need internal reporting or have a small budget (Power BI, Metabase, Looker Studio).
Lightdash vs Sisense pricing
Lightdash
- Open Source$0Self-hosted, core BI features, community Slack support
- Cloud Pro$3,000/moNo per-seat pricing, unlimited users, AI agents, onboarding
- EnterpriseCustomCloud or on-prem, SSO/SAML/SCIM, SOC 2, HIPAA
Sisense
- Self-serveCustomStart free at app.sisense.com; paid price not published
- EnterpriseCustomSaaS, dedicated cloud or on-prem; 99.99% premium SLA
Lightdash · Key features
- Metrics defined in dbt YAML
- Self-serve exploration for business users
- Dashboards and scheduled deliveries
- AI analyst for natural language queries
- Embedding
- Open source and cloud
Cons
- Requires dbt
- Cloud pricing starts high
- Visualization less rich than Tableau
Sisense · Key features
- Compose SDK for embedding charts in React, Angular and Vue apps
- Iframe embedding with full white-labeling of dashboards
- Live connections or the ElastiCube in-memory data engine
- Natural-language queries and auto-generated narratives via Sisense Intelligence
- Multi-tenant architecture with row and column-level security
- Bring your own LLM for governed generative AI features
Cons
- No published pricing and contracts are typically annual
- Expensive compared with open-source embedding tools
- Data modeling and ElastiCube tuning need technical skills
Lightdash vs Sisense: FAQ
Do Lightdash and Sisense have a free plan?
Lightdash has a free plan. Sisense has no free plan.