head to head · open source
Metabase vs Evidence
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Evidence has 6,943 stars, 418 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 610% (49,312 vs 6,943 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; Evidence is written in TypeScript under MIT. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Evidence 6%. Metabase was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (analytics, business-intelligence, dashboard, 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 | Evidence | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 418 |
| 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 Evidence if
- You want the Evidence feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Evidence 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 Evidence
Evidence is an open source, code based business intelligence tool for building reports and data visualizations. It lives in the Data & Analytics ecosystem, specifically Business Intelligence and Reporting, and is written in TypeScript under the MIT license. Reports are authored in SQL and markdown rather than assembled through drag and drop interfaces, and the project describes itself as an agent ready tool for creating reports from data. The repository carries 6,936 stars and 417 forks, with 37 open issues at the time of writing.
read the full Evidence overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or Evidence more popular?
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars and Evidence has 6,943. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and Evidence free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and Evidence is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and Evidence?
Metabase is written in Clojure and Evidence 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 Evidence?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,312 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Evidence if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.