head to head · open source
Metabase vs php-spx
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars, 6,968 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. php-spx has 2,645 stars, 104 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 1,795% (50,114 vs 2,645 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; php-spx is written in C under GPL-3.0. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, php-spx 4%. 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 | php-spx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.0K | ⑂ 104 |
| 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 php-spx if
- You want the php-spx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and php-spx 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 php-spx
SPX A simple profiler for PHP [![Build Status][:badge ci:]][:link ci:] ![Supported PHP versions: 5.4 .. 8.x][:badge php versions:] ![Supported platforms: GNU/Linux, macOS & FreeBSD][:badge supported platforms:] ![Supported architectures: x86 64 or ARM64][:badge supported arch:] [![License][:badge license:]][:link license:] Click here for a live demo of the analysis screen SPX, which stands for Simple Profiling eXtension , is just another profiling extension for PHP. It differentiates itself from other similar extensions as being: totally free and confined to your infrastructure (i.e. no data leaks to a SaaS)…
read the full php-spx overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or php-spx more popular?
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars and php-spx has 2,645. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and php-spx free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and php-spx is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and php-spx?
Metabase is written in Clojure and php-spx in C. 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 php-spx?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (50,114 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose php-spx if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.