head to head · open source
Metabase vs sentinl
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars, 6,824 forks, 4,346 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sentinl has 1,318 stars, 292 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Metabase leads on adoption by 3,641% (49,312 vs 1,318 stars). Metabase is written in Clojure under a custom or non-standard licence; sentinl is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. Metabase has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, sentinl 22%. Metabase was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | sentinl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Clojure | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-01-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 292 |
| 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 sentinl if
- You want the sentinl 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 sentinl 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 sentinl
Sentinl is an open source JavaScript application for the Elasticsearch ecosystem. It extends Siren Investigate and Kibana with alerting and reporting functionality under the Apache License, version 2. It targets Siren Investigate and Kibana 6.x through a native app interface.
read the full sentinl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Metabase or sentinl more popular?
Metabase has 49,312 GitHub stars and sentinl has 1,318. Metabase has the larger community by that measure.
Are Metabase and sentinl free?
Both are open source. Metabase has no licence declared in this registry, and sentinl is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Metabase and sentinl?
Metabase is written in Clojure and sentinl 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 sentinl?
Choose Metabase if you want the larger community (49,312 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sentinl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.