Metabase vs Sisense
Metabase and Sisense are both BI & dashboards tools. Metabase is aimed at small businesses and developers, while Sisense is aimed at enterprise and developers. Only Metabase has a free plan.
Metabase
Open-source BI anyone can use
Sisense
Embedded analytics platform for putting dashboards inside your product
| Pricing | Open source · $100 | Paid |
| Starting price | $100/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | 14 days | — |
| Built for | Small businesses, Developers | Enterprise, Developers, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2015 | US · 2004 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Metabase if
Startups and mid-size companies wanting quick, affordable BI; developers embedding analytics.
- Free open-source edition is genuinely usable
- Easy for non-analysts
- Wide database support
Look elsewhere if: Enterprises needing advanced modeling and governance (Looker, Power BI).
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).
Metabase vs Sisense pricing
Metabase
- Open Source$0Self-hosted, unlimited users
- Starter$100/mo$90/mo billed annually; 5 users, +$6/user
- Pro$575/mo$517.50/mo billed annually; 10 users, +$12/user; SSO, embedding
- EnterpriseCustomFrom $20,000/yr; dedicated success engineer
Sisense
- Self-serveCustomStart free at app.sisense.com; paid price not published
- EnterpriseCustomSaaS, dedicated cloud or on-prem; 99.99% premium SLA
Metabase · Key features
- Visual query builder plus native SQL editor
- Dashboards with filters, drill-through and subscriptions
- Alerts and scheduled email/Slack reports
- Models and metrics for governed self-serve
- Embedding (public, static, interactive SDK)
- Open source self-hosting or managed cloud
Cons
- Visualization options are basic
- Performance depends on your database
- Advanced permissions need Pro
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
Metabase vs Sisense: FAQ
Do Metabase and Sisense have a free plan?
Metabase has a free plan. Sisense has no free plan.