head to head · open source
Metabase vs plotly.js
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plotly.js has 18,337 stars, 2,031 forks, 769 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 169% (49,312 vs 18,337 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; plotly.js is written in JavaScript under MIT. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, plotly.js 11%. 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 | plotly.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 18K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Clojure | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| 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 plotly.js if
- You want the plotly.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and plotly.js 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 plotly.js
Plotly.js is an open source JavaScript charting library that renders interactive figures in the browser and also powers the Python and R packages named plotly in those ecosystems.
read the full plotly.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or plotly.js more popular?
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars and plotly.js has 18,337. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and plotly.js free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and plotly.js is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and plotly.js?
Metabase is written in Clojure and plotly.js in JavaScript. 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 plotly.js?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,312 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose plotly.js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.