Business intelligence · cost comparison
Tableau vs self-hosted Metabase: what each actually costs
Tableau on the Tableau Standard tier against Metabase running on the smallest server that fits it. Every figure below is computed from the sizing model and the dated prices at the foot of this page, and includes the part most comparisons leave out: your own time.
At 10 people, self-hosting Metabase costs $121 a month against $150 for Tableau. You are ahead after 15 months and $611 better off over 36 months, with your own time already priced in.
- Tableau
- $150per month, Tableau Standard
- Self-hosted
- $121server, backups and your time
- Server and backups
- $8.04CX23 (cost-optimized), 4 GB RAM
- 36-month difference
- $611 saved by self-hosting
- Break-even
- 15 monthsafter $450 of setup time
The same comparison at every team size
Self-hosting has a floor and almost no slope, while per-seat software has no floor and a steep slope. That is the whole story, and it is why the answer flips somewhere in this table rather than being the same for everyone.
| Team size | Tableau | Self-hosted | Without valuing your time | Server needed | 36-month difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| solo | $15.00 | $121 | $8.04 | CX23 (cost-optimized) (4 GB) | -$4,249 |
| 5 people | $75.00 | $121 | $8.04 | CX23 (cost-optimized) (4 GB) | -$2,089 |
| 10 people | $150 | $121 | $8.04 | CX23 (cost-optimized) (4 GB) | +$611 |
| 25 people | $375 | $121 | $8.04 | CX23 (cost-optimized) (4 GB) | +$8,711 |
| 50 people | $750 | $121 | $8.04 | CX23 (cost-optimized) (4 GB) | +$22,211 |
| 100 people | $1,500 | $125 | $12.07 | CX33 (cost-optimized) (8 GB) | +$49,065 |
| 250 people | $3,750 | $125 | $12.07 | CX33 (cost-optimized) (8 GB) | +$130,065 |
The balance tips in favour of self-hosting at around 10 people.
Where the self-hosted money actually goes at 10 people
| Line item | Per month | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Server | $6.70 | CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB disk |
| Backups | $1.34 | Provider snapshots at 20% of the server price. Skipping this is not a saving, it is a bet. |
| Your time | $112 | 1.5 hours a month of updates, upgrades and the occasional broken thing, at $75 an hour |
| Total | $121 | Plus $450 once, for roughly 6 hours of first-time setup |
Tableau at this size costs $150 a month. 10 seats at $15.00 each. This is the annually-billed rate, which is what the vendor's page displayed; paying monthly costs more.
What Metabase needs to run at 10 people
JVM application with an application database of its own. Concurrent query load, not seat count, is what forces an upgrade here.
| Resource | Required | How it is derived |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 2.7 GB | 2 GB for the stack at rest, plus 15 MB per active user, plus 25% headroom |
| Disk | 10.5 GB | 10 GB base, plus 0.05 GB per user |
| vCPU | 2 | The project's own baseline. For this workload memory runs out before the processor does. |
What you give up, stated plainly
- Uptime is now yours. Tableau has an operations team on call. Self-hosted, a failed upgrade at 18:00 on a Friday is your evening.
- Backups only exist if you test restoring them. The $1.34 line above buys snapshots, not a rehearsed recovery.
- Metabase is a multi-container stack with a database you have to back up yourself. That is why the maintenance line is 1.5 hours a month rather than zero.
- Feature parity is never exact. Metabase covers the core of what teams use Tableau for; the long tail of integrations and enterprise controls is where the gap shows.
Where to put Metabase
2.7 GB of memory and 10.5 GB of disk is what this needs at 10 people. The cheapest plan that fits, among the providers whose prices we have read ourselves, is the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month.
Go to Hetzner Cloud Compare hosts
We are not claiming this is the cheapest server on the internet. It is the cheapest one we can honestly quote. Vultr and PikaPods publish prices we could not read programmatically, and may well undercut it. Price them yourself before you commit.
Metabase at a glance
| Licence | Other not a standard open-source licence |
|---|---|
| Written in | Clojure |
| GitHub stars | 49,210, checked 2026-09-12 |
| Latest release | v0.63.17 |
| Last commit | 2026-09-12 |
| Ships Docker images | Yes |
| Project | www.metabase.com · metabase/metabase |
Get the migration checklist for this tool
A one-page pre-flight list: data export path, sizing, backup plan, and the rollback step most people skip.
Questions people actually ask
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: $6.70 for the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud, $1.34 of backups, and $112 for the 1.5 hours a month it takes to look after.
Is Metabase cheaper than Tableau?
Yes, after 15 months, once $450 of first-time setup is counted. Over 36 months the difference is $611 in favour of self-hosting.
What server does Metabase need?
At 10 people, 2.7 GB of memory and 10.5 GB of disk. The cheapest plan that fits, among the providers whose prices we have read, is the CX23 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $6.70 a month.
How much work is Metabase to run?
It is rated medium: about 6 hours to set up and 1.5 hours a month afterwards, priced at $75.00 an hour in the figures above.
Every figure on this page, and where it came from
| Input | Value used | Source | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tableau Tableau Standard | USD 15.00 per seat per month | vendor pricing page | 2026-09-14 |
| Hetzner Cloud CX23 (cost-optimized) | $6.70 per month | provider pricing page | 2026-10-25 |
| Engineer time | $75 per hour | our published assumption | — |
| Metabase sizing | 2 GB base, 15 MB per user | project documentation | — |
Prices move. If the vendor has changed theirs since 2026-09-14, the figures above are stale and the source links are the authority, not us. How we handle that.