Pick Hex if
solo analysts who will stay on Community $0 (small compute, agent trial), then buy Professional at $36/Editor/month when they need Medium compute, Standard agent credits, and 30-day history.
Read the Hex pageHex vs Metabase
Our take
Pick Hex if solo analysts who will stay on Community $0 (small compute, agent trial), then buy Professional at $36/Editor/month when they need Medium compute, Standard agent credits, and 30-day history. Pick Metabase if ops / data teams who will self-host OSS at $0 (unlimited internal users, no embed SKU) while they ask a first Orders question, or start the Cloud Starter 14-day trial and land on $100/month (5 users
Best for
Hex Trusted exploration you later ship as a data app
Metabase Charts you start at $100 Cloud or OSS $0
Free plan
Hex No free plan
Metabase $0 · aGPL. Unlimited internal users. No embed SKU. You run it
Lowest paid
Hex Professional $36/mo
Metabase Transforms $0.01
Next step up
Hex
Metabase AI add-on $3.75
Coding agent
Hex Hex agent
Metabase
Runs where
Hex
Metabase Local; you host it
Watch out
Hex Community is Small compute and an agent trial
Metabase Starter’s $100 includes 5 users
Last checked
Hex 2026-10-22 · hex.tech/pricing
Metabase 2026-10-22 · metabase.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Metabase if
ops / data teams who will self-host OSS at $0 (unlimited internal users, no embed SKU) while they ask a first Orders question, or start the Cloud Starter 14-day trial and land on $100/month (5 users included, then $6/user) when they do not want to run the stack.
Read the Metabase page