Pick Lightdash if
analytics teams who already own dbt and will self-host at $0, or buy Cloud Pro at $3,000/month after the 21-day trial — and will not treat embedding as the core product.
Read the Lightdash pageLightdash vs Metabase
Our take
Pick Lightdash if analytics teams who already own dbt and will self-host at $0, or buy Cloud Pro at $3,000/month after the 21-day trial — and will not treat embedding as the core product. 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
Lightdash
dbt-native BI desk
Best for
Lightdash Charts on your dbt semantic layer you start at $0 or $3,000
Metabase Charts you start at $100 Cloud or OSS $0
Free plan
Lightdash $0 · core BI. Unlimited seats. Community Slack only. Access to Lightdash OSS only
Metabase $0 · aGPL. Unlimited internal users. No embed SKU. You run it
Lowest paid
Lightdash Cloud Pro $3/mo
Metabase Transforms $0.01
Next step up
Lightdash HIPAA BAA $490/mo
Metabase AI add-on $3.75
Runs where
Lightdash Local; you host it
Metabase Local; you host it
Watch out
Lightdash Cloud Pro is $3,000/month
Metabase Starter’s $100 includes 5 users
Last checked
Lightdash 2026-10-23 · lightdash.com/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