Business intelligence
Open-source alternatives to Tableau, priced
2 open-source tools that can replace Tableau, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Tableau on the Tableau Standard tier costs $150 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Tableau here is Metabase, at $121 a month against $150, with your own time already counted.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Tableau | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metabase | $8.04 | $121 | +$611 | medium | source-available |
| Apache Superset | $12.07 | $237 | -$4,335 | hard | Apache-2.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Metabase 49,210 stars
JVM application with an application database of its own. Concurrent query load, not seat count, is what forces an upgrade here.
At 10 people it needs 2.7 GB of memory and 10.5 GB of disk, which fits the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month. Setting it up is roughly 6 hours of work, then 1.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Tableau versus Metabase breakdown · Metabase at every team size
Apache Superset 74,726 stars
Web process, Celery workers, beat scheduler, PostgreSQL and Redis. More capable than Metabase and considerably more to operate.
At 10 people it needs 5.2 GB of memory and 20.5 GB of disk, which fits the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Tableau versus Apache Superset breakdown · Apache Superset at every team size
How the pricing was established
Tableau pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
Related
- All business intelligence compared
- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metabase | Other | Clojure | 6 h | 1.5 h a month | 49,210 |
| Apache Superset | Apache License 2.0 | Python | 16 h | 3 h a month | 74,726 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Tableau?
There are 2 on this page. 1 of them are open source, published under Apache-2.0, with no licence to buy. Metabase ships its source under its own licence rather than a standard open-source one, so check its terms before commercial use. None of them is free to run: the cheapest, Metabase, costs $121 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Tableau cost?
Tableau Tableau Standard costs $150 a month at 10 people: USD 15.00 per seat per month. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Metabase?
$121 a month at 10 people. That is $6.70 for the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, plus backups, plus 1.5 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Metabase is cheaper than Tableau?
15 months, counting $450 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $611.
Which Tableau alternative is the easiest to run?
Metabase, rated medium: about 6 hours to set up and 1.5 hours afterwards.