head to head · open source
dbt vs perspective
dbt has 14,118 GitHub stars, 2,661 forks, 1,534 open issues and last shipped yesterday. perspective has 11,390 stars, 1,356 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbt leads on adoption by 24% (14,118 vs 11,390 stars). dbt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; perspective is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. dbt has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, perspective 12%. perspective was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (analytics, business-intelligence), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| dbt | perspective | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dbt if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick perspective if
- You want the perspective feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and perspective fits your workflow better
About dbt
[!WARNING] dbt v1 development has moved to the 1.latest branch. The main branch now contains all the Apache 2.0 source code of dbt v2.0 — a ground up rewrite of dbt in Rust. If you're looking for the v1 Python implementation of the dbt framework, switch to 1.latest . dbt enables data analysts and engineers to transform their data using the same practices that software engineers use to build applications. About dbt v2.0 🚧 dbt v2.0 is in beta. Behavior, APIs, and on disk formats may change before the stable release. dbt v2.0 is engineered for performance at scale. It parses, compiles, and runs projects in a…
About perspective
Perspective is an interactive analytics and data visualization component for large, real time and streaming datasets. Build user configurable reports, dashboards, notebooks and applications, backed by a high performance streaming query engine that runs in browser via WebAssembly or server side in Python, Node.js and Rust — or delegates to a database you already have. Features A data reactive UI packaged as a Custom Element, with drag and drop query and layout configuration. Includes a virtual scrolling, editable data grid, WebGL charting engine with 15+ chart types, tile based geographic maps, full theme…
read the full perspective overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dbt or perspective more popular?
dbt has 14,118 GitHub stars and perspective has 11,390. dbt has the larger community by that measure.
Are dbt and perspective free?
Both are open source. dbt is licensed under Apache-2.0 and perspective under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dbt and perspective?
dbt is written in Rust and perspective in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dbt or perspective?
Choose dbt if you want the larger community (14,118 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose perspective if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.