head to head · open source
Metabase vs ara
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars, 6,968 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ara has 2,024 stars, 181 forks, 133 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 2,376% (50,114 vs 2,024 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 | ★ 50K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.0K | ⑂ 181 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Metabase if
- You weight community size — 50K 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 Metabase is the easy, open source way for everyone in your company to ask questions and learn from data. Get started The easiest way to get started with Metabase is to sign up for a free trial of Metabase Cloud. You get expert support, backups, upgrades, an SMTP server, SSL certificate, SoC2 Type 2 security auditing, and more (plus your money goes toward improving a major open source project). Check out our quick overview of cloud vs self hosting. If you need to, you can always switch to self hosting Metabase at any time (or vice versa). Key Features Set up in five minutes (we're not kidding), or have…
read the full Metabase overview →
About ara
ARA Records Ansible ARA Records Ansible and makes it easier to understand and troubleshoot. It is another recursive acronym with a focus on simplicity. About ara ara provides Ansible reporting by recording ansible and ansible playbook commands regardless of how and where they run: from most Linux distributions and even on Mac OS (as long as python = 3.10 is available) from tools that run Ansible like ansible (pull test runner navigator), AWX & Automation Controller (Tower), Molecule and Semaphore from a terminal, a script or by hand from a laptop, desktop, server, virtual machine, container or execution…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or ara more popular?
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars and ara has 2,024. 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 (50,114 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.