head to head · open source
Metabase vs plot
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped today. plot has 5,384 stars, 243 forks, 349 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 816% (49,323 vs 5,384 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; plot is written in HTML under ISC. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, plot 5%. 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 | plot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | Custom / other | ISC |
| Written in | Clojure | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 243 |
| 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 plot if
- You want the plot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the ISC license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and plot 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 plot
Observable Plot is a free, open source JavaScript library for visualizing tabular data, aimed at analysts and developers who need a concise, expressive API to accelerate exploratory data analysis.
More in Data & Analytics
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or plot more popular?
Metabase has 49,323 GitHub stars and plot has 5,384. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and plot free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and plot is licensed under ISC. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and plot?
Metabase is written in Clojure and plot in HTML. 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 plot?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,323 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose plot if its feature set, stack or ISC licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.