head to head · open source
Metabase vs rawgraphs-app
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars, 6,968 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rawgraphs-app has 9,052 stars, 1,838 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 454% (50,114 vs 9,052 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; rawgraphs-app is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, rawgraphs-app 20%. Metabase was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (data, 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 | rawgraphs-app | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 9.1K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.0K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 rawgraphs-app if
- You want the rawgraphs-app feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and rawgraphs-app 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 rawgraphs-app
About RAWGraphs is an open web tool to create custom vector based visualizations on top of the amazing d3.js library. It has been developed by DensityDesign Research Lab (Politecnico di Milano), Calibro and INMAGIK. Primarily conceived as a tool for designers and vis geeks, RAWGraphs aims at providing a missing link between spreadsheet applications (e.g., LibreOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, Google Docs) and vector graphics editors (e.g., Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator). RAWGraphs works with tabular data (e.g., spreadsheets and comma separated values) as well as with copied and pasted texts from other…
read the full rawgraphs-app overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or rawgraphs-app more popular?
Metabase has 50,114 GitHub stars and rawgraphs-app has 9,052. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and rawgraphs-app free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and rawgraphs-app is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and rawgraphs-app?
Metabase is written in Clojure and rawgraphs-app 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 rawgraphs-app?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (50,114 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose rawgraphs-app if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.