head to head · open source
Metabase vs ara
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ara has 2,020 stars, 180 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 2,341% (49,312 vs 2,020 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; ara is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, ara 9%. Metabase 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
| Metabase | ara | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 180 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Metabase if
- You weight community size — 49K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Clojure
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ara if
- You want the ara feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and ara fits your workflow better
About Metabase
Metabase is an open source business intelligence and embedded analytics tool, written in Clojure, that lets everyone in a company ask questions of their data and build dashboards without needing to know SQL.
read the full Metabase overview →
About ara
ARA Records Ansible is a Python project that records Ansible runs and presents results for reporting and troubleshooting. It is a recursive acronym focused on simplicity, and it lives in the Ansible ecosystem while using Django, Django REST Framework, a web interface, and an API.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or ara more popular?
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars and ara has 2,020. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and ara free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and ara is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and ara?
Metabase is written in Clojure and ara in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Metabase or ara?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,312 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose ara if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.