head to head · open source
Metabase vs jasperreports
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars, 6,968 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jasperreports has 1,375 stars, 470 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 3,545% (50,114 vs 1,375 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 | ★ 50K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.0K | ⑂ 470 |
| 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 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 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 jasperreports
[!IMPORTANT] JasperReports Library 7 released! The version 7 of the JasperReports Library introduces major refactoring of the project, which is needed for the Jakarta Migration. The changes help improving the dependency management by splitting the library into multiple optional artifacts ( .jar files) depending on the functionality they provide. Deprecated code has been removed and the backward compatibility of serialized/compiled .jasper report template files has been deliberately broken. More details about the changes can be found here. JasperReports Library 7.0.0 Change Log removal of the Ant build system and…
read the full jasperreports overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or jasperreports more popular?
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars and jasperreports has 1,375. 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 (50,114 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.