BI & dashboard platforms · Lightdash

Lightdash

Open-source BI tool built on top of dbt, reading dbt models and metric definitions as its semantic layer for teams already using dbt.

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Lightdash is an open-source business intelligence tool designed to sit directly on top of dbt: instead of maintaining a separate proprietary modeling layer, it reads metrics, dimensions, and descriptions defined in a team's existing dbt project and exposes them as the semantic layer for exploration and dashboards. This makes the analytics engineering workflow (models and metrics defined and version-controlled in dbt) the single source of truth for both transformation and BI, rather than duplicating logic in a second tool. Analysts explore governed metrics through a spreadsheet-like interface, build dashboards, and set up scheduled deliveries and alerts. Lightdash can be self-hosted for free as open source, or run as a managed Lightdash Cloud instance; Enterprise adds SSO/SAML, SCIM, custom roles, and on-premises deployment options.

At a glance

Vendor Lightdash
Pricing model Open source + paid options
Free tier Yes
Deployment Cloud, Self-hosted
Open source Yes (MIT)
Best for Analytics engineering teams already standardized on dbt who want BI that reuses dbt's metric definitions instead of a second modeling layer.

Pricing

The self-hosted open-source edition is free; Cloud Pro is a flat monthly fee with no per-seat pricing, plus metered data-loading costs, and Enterprise is custom.

Plan Price Notes
Open Source Free Self-hosted; core BI features; community Slack support only
Cloud Pro $3,000/month No per-seat pricing; unlimited users; data loads billed pay-as-you-go ($0.05/load after 1,000 free) or $790/month for 100k loads
Enterprise Custom (contact sales) Cloud or on-premises deployment; SSO/SAML, SCIM 2.0, SOC 2/HIPAA, priority SLA support

Prices read from the vendor's own page on September 21, 2026. Vendors change prices; check the source before you budget.

Features

  • Reads dbt models and metric definitions as the semantic layer
  • Version-controlled metrics via dbt (no separate modeling layer)
  • Spreadsheet-like exploration over governed metrics
  • Scheduled dashboard deliveries and alerts
  • Self-hosted (Docker) or managed Cloud deployment
  • AI agents for querying
  • Embedding options

Integrations

Profile last reviewed September 21, 2026

Head to head

Alternatives

Apache Superset Open-source, SQL-centric dashboarding and visualization tool originated at Airbnb, now an Apache Software Foundation project. Metabase Open-source business intelligence tool for self-service dashboards, SQL and no-code queries, and embedded analytics. Redash Open-source, SQL-first tool for querying multiple data sources and building lightweight, shareable dashboards; self-hosted only. Holistics Cloud BI platform built on a governed semantic-modeling layer for defining metrics once and exploring them self-service across any warehouse.

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Terms to know

dbt (data build tool) An open-source tool from dbt Labs that lets analytics teams write data transformations as version-controlled, tested SQL. Semantic layer A layer that defines business metrics and dimensions once, centrally, so every tool and report uses the same numbers. Analytics engineer A role that builds and maintains the transformed, tested data models analysts and dashboards rely on. Data modeling The practice of organizing data into entities, relationships and schemas that make it accurate and efficient to query. Business intelligence (BI) The practice of turning company data into dashboards, reports and metrics that guide business decisions.