head to head · open source
Metabase vs c3
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped today. c3 has 9,350 stars, 1,360 forks, 771 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 428% (49,323 vs 9,350 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; c3 is written in JavaScript under MIT. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, c3 15%. 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 | c3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 c3 if
- You want the c3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and c3 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 c3
c3 is a D3 based reusable chart library that lets developers embed configurable, interactive SVG charts into web applications by describing each chart as a configuration object instead of writing D3 code directly.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or c3 more popular?
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars and c3 has 9,350. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and c3 free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and c3 is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and c3?
Metabase is written in Clojure and c3 in JavaScript. 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 c3?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,323 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose c3 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.