Lightdash is a BI & dashboards tool: BI built on dbt metrics.

How much does Lightdash cost?

Lightdash is Open source; there is no mandatory paid plan.

Does Lightdash have a free trial?

Yes, Lightdash offers a 21-day free trial.

What does Lightdash integrate with?

Lightdash integrates with dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres and more.

Lightdash

BI built on dbt metrics

Open source · $3000BI & dashboards

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Lightdash is a bI & dashboards tool for Developers and Small businesses, offered as open source ($3000/mo). Founded in United Kingdom in 2020.

About Lightdash

Lightdash is an open-source business intelligence tool built on top of dbt, made by a London-based startup. Instead of defining metrics in a separate BI layer, analysts declare dimensions, metrics and joins in the same dbt YAML files that describe their models, so business logic is version-controlled, reviewed in pull requests and reused everywhere.

Business users then explore those governed metrics through a point-and-click interface, build charts and dashboards, and schedule deliveries to Slack, email or Google Sheets. Lightdash also offers an AI analyst that answers natural language questions using the semantic layer, a SQL runner, spaces with permissions, dashboards-as-code and embedding for customer-facing analytics. The core is open source and can be self-hosted for free, while Lightdash Cloud adds managed hosting with unlimited viewers, and Enterprise adds SSO, embedding, advanced permissions and support.

It is a strong fit for data teams that already run dbt and want a semantic-layer BI without Looker's cost or a proprietary modeling language. It requires dbt, so teams without it are better served by Metabase or Power BI. Visualization options are less rich than Tableau, and cloud pricing starts at a level aimed at companies rather than individuals. Looker is the closest conceptual match, while Metabase and Superset are open-source alternatives that work directly on database tables.

Key features of Lightdash

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

Pros and cons

Pros

Governed metrics in code
Tight dbt integration
Unlimited viewers
Open source option

Cons

Requires dbt
Cloud pricing starts high
Visualization less rich than Tableau
Smaller community

Lightdash pricing

Lightdash uses a open source model. A 21-day free trial is available.

Plan	Price	Includes
Open Source	$0	Self-hosted, core BI features, community Slack support
Cloud Pro	$3,000 / mo	No per-seat pricing, unlimited users, AI agents, onboarding
Enterprise	Custom	Cloud or on-prem, SSO/SAML/SCIM, SOC 2, HIPAA

Source: www.lightdash.com · checked on Oct 20, 2026

How Lightdash compares in BI & dashboards

Rank by votes: #1 / 16
Starting price: $3000
Free alternatives: 4

Lightdash ranks #1 of 16 bi & dashboards tools by community votes and is priced above most tools in the category.

Common use cases

1dbt team exposing models to business users
2Governed KPI dashboards
3Embedded analytics in a SaaS
4Replacing Looker

Best for

Data teams using dbt who want a semantic-layer BI.

Not ideal for

Teams without dbt (Metabase).

Integrations

dbt
Snowflake
BigQuery
Databricks
Redshift
Postgres
Slack
Google Sheets

Our take

Lightdash is the best BI for dbt-first teams.

FAQ

What is Lightdash?: Lightdash is a BI & dashboards tool: BI built on dbt metrics.
How much does Lightdash cost?: Lightdash is Open source; there is no mandatory paid plan.
Does Lightdash have a free trial?: Yes, Lightdash offers a 21-day free trial.
What does Lightdash integrate with?: Lightdash integrates with dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres and more.
Which platforms does Lightdash support?: Lightdash is available on web.
Who is Lightdash for?: Data teams using dbt who want a semantic-layer BI.

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