head to head · open source
Metabase vs jasperreports
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jasperreports has 1,363 stars, 464 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Metabase leads on adoption by 3,518% (49,312 vs 1,363 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; jasperreports is written in Java under LGPL-3.0. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, jasperreports 34%. 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 | jasperreports | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 464 |
| 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 jasperreports if
- You want the jasperreports feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and jasperreports 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 jasperreports
JasperReports Library is an open source Java reporting library distributed under the LGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the Java ecosystem and the business intelligence and reporting category. It provides a reporting engine that consumes data from various data sources and produces formatted documents for viewing, printing, or export.
read the full jasperreports overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or jasperreports more popular?
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars and jasperreports has 1,363. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and jasperreports free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and jasperreports is licensed under LGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and jasperreports?
Metabase is written in Clojure and jasperreports in Java. 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 jasperreports?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,312 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose jasperreports if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.