The dashboard is the easy part.
Metabase made asking questions of a database genuinely simple, and its open-source core is deservedly loved. AZ-Five treats dashboards as one station of a network that also enforces quality, governs definitions, and runs your pipelines and product analytics.
Where Metabase is stronger.
A comparison you can trust has to start with what the other side does better.
- Open source, self-hosted today
- Metabase’s core is open source and runs on your own hardware right now. AZ-Five is hosted; self-hosting is planned but not shipped.
- Simplicity and adoption
- The question-builder is famously easy to hand to a non-technical team, and the community around it is large.
- Query-in-place
- Metabase connects to the database you already have and queries it where it lives — no ingestion step at all.
Side by side.
| Capability | Metabase | AZ-Five |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboards & questions | Mature GUI question builder and dashboards | Chart builder over governed measures, dashboards that carry quality state |
| Semantic layer | Models and metrics, defined in the app | A governed measure catalog with branches, change requests and lineage |
| Data quality | Not its domain | Profiling on arrival, rule checks with SLAs, health on every chart |
| Pipelines | Not its domain | A visual DAG orchestrator, 28 task types, event triggers |
| Product analytics | Not its domain | Events, funnels, replay, flags, experiments, surveys built in |
| Storage | Queries your existing database in place | A managed open lakehouse — data lands as Delta tables you can copy out |
| Embedding | Mature embedding, paid tiers for advanced options | Token-scoped, row-filtered, white-label embeds |
| Pricing model | Free OSS; hosted and pro tiers per seat | Usage-based, unlimited seats on every tier |
COMPARISON CHECKED 2026-09
The fares, side by side.
Metabase's column quotes metabase.com/pricing as it read on the date below. AZ-Five's column is the fare table. Prices are theirs to change; if we're out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
| Capability | Metabase | AZ-Five |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Open Source: free, self-hosted, unlimited users | 1M events, 5,000 replays, 1M flag requests, 5 GB storage, 100 compute minutes a month — every feature, unlimited seats, no card |
| Entry cloud plan | Starter $100/mo ($90 billed yearly) — 5 users included, then $6 per user/mo | Plus $29/mo — unlimited seats |
| Mid tier | Pro $575/mo ($517.50 billed yearly) — 10 users included, then $12 per user/mo | Professional $199/mo — unlimited seats, priority engine, BYO AI key |
| Enterprise | Custom, from $20,000 a year | Custom, annual — dedicated instance, SSO, DPA, SLA |
| Paid-only features | Embedding, SSO, row/column permissions on Pro and up | Embeds and row-level grants on every tier (embed badge removed from Plus); enterprise SSO on Enterprise |
| Usage add-ons | Storage from $2 per 1M rows; AI $3.75 per 1M tokens; transforms per run | Storage and compute allowances per tier; AI allowance included, BYO key unmetered on Professional |
FARES AS PUBLISHED 2026-09-08 · CHECK THEIRS BEFORE DECIDING
What the network adds.
- Numbers that defend themselves
- Every published number carries the quality state of the data behind it and traces back to its source through lineage. See the line
- Definitions under review
- Measures live in a governed catalog with branches and change requests — the board deck and the ad-hoc query cannot disagree. See the line
Straight answers.
Something we got wrong about Metabase? Tell us at hello@az-five.com and we'll fix it.
Is AZ-Five a Metabase alternative?
For BI — dashboards, self-serve questions, embedding — yes, with a stronger governance story: measures are defined once in a catalog, changed through review, and every number carries its quality state. Metabase remains the simpler choice if all you want is questions over an existing database.
Do I need my own warehouse?
No. AZ-Five includes the storage: uploads, connector syncs and events land as open Delta Lake tables, queried in place by DataFusion. There is no separate warehouse to buy or size.
Can I embed dashboards in my product?
Yes — embeds are tokenised per viewer, row-scoped by the same permission model as the workspace, and white-label.
Is AZ-Five open source?
The product is not open source today. The data always is: standard Parquet with a Delta Lake transaction log, exportable by copying files.
How does pricing compare?
Metabase Open Source is free if you host it yourself. Its cloud plans are priced per user — Starter at $100 a month for 5 users, then $6 per user; Pro at $575 a month for 10 users, then $12 per user — with embedding and SSO on Pro and up. AZ-Five never charges per seat: Free is hosted with unlimited seats, Plus is $29 a month and Professional $199, with embeds on every tier.
Try the whole network free.
Unlimited seats, every feature, no card. Bring one dataset and see whether one system beats the stitched stack.