head to head · open source
Metabase vs AVA
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. AVA has 1,500 stars, 154 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Metabase leads on adoption by 3,188% (49,323 vs 1,500 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; AVA is written in TypeScript under MIT. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, AVA 10%. Metabase was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (data-visualization), 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
| Metabase | AVA | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 154 |
| 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 AVA if
- You want the AVA feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and AVA 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 AVA
AVA is an MIT licensed, TypeScript based AI native visual analytics framework for developers and agents that need to load unstructured data, ask questions in plain language, and generate chart output without building a rule based analytics pipeline.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or AVA more popular?
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars and AVA has 1,500. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and AVA free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and AVA is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and AVA?
Metabase is written in Clojure and AVA in TypeScript. 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 AVA?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,323 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose AVA if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.