head to head · open source
Lightdash vs whodb
Lightdash has 6,145 GitHub stars, 777 forks, 1,018 open issues and last shipped today. whodb has 5,033 stars, 240 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped today. Lightdash leads on adoption by 22% (6,145 vs 5,033 stars). Lightdash is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; whodb is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Lightdash has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, whodb 5%. Lightdash was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Lightdash | whodb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 777 | ⑂ 240 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightdash if
- You weight community size — 6.1K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick whodb if
- You want the whodb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and whodb fits your workflow better
About Lightdash
Lightdash is an open source, agentic business intelligence platform for modern data teams, written in TypeScript and distributed under a NOASSERTION license. It lives in the data and analytics ecosystem, specifically the data engineering and integration space, and it is built around dbt and warehouse native workflows. The project describes itself as agentic BI, meaning analytics is intended to move at the speed of code rather than through point and click configuration alone.
read the full Lightdash overview →
About whodb
WhoDB is an Apache 2.0, Go based open source data workspace that gives users one place to explore databases, edit data, run queries, and understand how a schema fits together. It runs in the browser, is available as a desktop application, and also provides a terminal CLI, so it fits the open source data engineering and integration ecosystem for internal tools, data platforms, database management, data governance, data integration, data pipelines, data catalogs, data lineage, and ER diagrams.
read the full whodb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightdash or whodb more popular?
Lightdash has 6,145 GitHub stars and whodb has 5,033. Lightdash has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightdash and whodb free?
Both are open source. Lightdash has no licence declared in this registry, and whodb is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Lightdash and whodb?
Lightdash is written in TypeScript and whodb in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightdash or whodb?
Choose Lightdash if you want the larger community (6,145 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose whodb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.