head to head · open source
Metabase vs kepler.gl
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped today. kepler.gl has 12,013 stars, 1,957 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped today. Metabase leads on adoption by 311% (49,323 vs 12,013 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; kepler.gl is written in TypeScript under MIT. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, kepler.gl 16%. 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 | kepler.gl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 12K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 kepler.gl if
- You want the kepler.gl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kepler.gl 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 kepler.gl
Kepler.gl is an MIT licensed, TypeScript geospatial analysis tool that renders large scale geolocation data sets in the browser at million point scale, built for data analysts, GIS practitioners, and React developers who need to explore trip and point data without assembling their own rendering stack.
read the full kepler.gl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or kepler.gl more popular?
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars and kepler.gl has 12,013. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and kepler.gl free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and kepler.gl is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and kepler.gl?
Metabase is written in Clojure and kepler.gl 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 kepler.gl?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,323 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kepler.gl if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.