BI Tools Comparison Matrix: A Holistic Collection (2025)
In this blog, we share the BI comparison matrix and an RFP template to help you compare BI tools more easily.
Introduction
Choosing the right BI tool is hard. With so many features, capabilities, and criteria to consider, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in options.
To save you from that fate, the folks at Datateer and the Chartio community crowd-sourced a BI tool comparison matrix for everyone’s sanity. Big thanks to Adam Roderick for generously sharing it with the dbt community.

It’s important to note that this BI tools evaluation matrix was created 02 years ago - even though the Holistics team has been updating it, this BI matrix might be 100% up-to-date with the current state of the mentioned BI tools.
That being said, it’s still a good starting point when there are too many BI tools on the market.
How To Use BI Tools Comparison Matrix
This Comparison Matrix aims to give you a framework to evaluate BI tools. Different companies have different analytics setups, use cases, and data literacy levels - so you should make a copy and make it your own.
Feel free to leave suggestions in this sheet so that we can continue to update it.
Comparing The Best BI Tools: A Template
Over the years, we've received over 100 RFPs (Requests for Proposal) from a wide range of prospects and customers, from small businesses to international Fortune 500 companies. This has given us valuable insight into how data teams evaluate BI tools, the key questions they ask, and the capabilities they prioritize.
We've compiled all these RFPs into a single template to provide you with a clear framework for comparing different BI tools. ⬇️

Since everyone's criteria are different, we recommend cloning this template and customizing it to fit your specific needs before sending it to the vendor you’re evaluating. We've included an example from Holistics BI to help guide you. Check it out.
30 Best BI Tools: A Quick Introduction
Here is the complete list of BI tools mentioned in this matrix - from Left To Right.
01. Astrato
Positioned as the alternative to Looker and Tableau for modern data teams, Astrato is an analytics and visualization layer on top of Snowflakes’ cloud. Each time you interact with and filter your visualizations, the Astrato data engine generates an SQL query and visualizes results instantly across all your data.
Pricing: User-based pricing. Starts at $8/user/month.

02. Actiondesk
As of 2025, Actiondesk has been acquired by DataDog.
Actiondesk provides a spreadsheet interface that seamlessly integrates with your existing SaaS tools and databases, enabling you to create dashboards and generate reports without the need for manual data imports.
Pricing: Start at $550/month. The all-feature plan starts at $1,000/month.
03. Holistics
Holistics is a self-service BI platform with a code-based semantic layer.
It allows analysts to build reusable metric definitions and manage them centrally on a semantic modeling layer, ensuring accuracy and consistency across organizations. Non-technical users can analyze and build their own charts using a drag-n-drop report builder, built-in interactive controls (e.g: date-drills, drill throughs, filtering), and 1-click analytical functions (e.g: Period comparison, percent total, trend analysis). All are made governable and maintainable with Git version control.
04. Preset
Built on the open-source Apache Superset, Preset is a powerful yet lightweight data visualization and exploration platform. It enables users to explore and analyze data using an intuitive no-code visualization builder, making it easy to create interactive charts and dashboards.
For more advanced users, Preset offers a robust SQL editor, allowing deeper data exploration and custom query execution.

Pricing: Free plan available. Pro plan is $20/month
05. BI. PEYE
BI.P.Eye is an embedded BI tool built for Bubble.io users, real estate + MLS stakeholders, or any company with embedded analytics use cases. Designed for ease of use, BI.P.Eye offers a no-code/low-code experience while supporting advanced SQL queries for deeper insights.

Pricing: Not Available.
06. Bipp Analytics
BIPP Analytics offers a cloud-based, SQL-native environment that enables users to build, analyze, and visualize data efficiently. It offers a visual data modeling layer to let analysts create data models without code. Business users can ask ad-hoc questions and explore data at a granular level.
Pricing: User-based pricing. Free plan available. Premium plans start at $10/user/month.

07. Infor Birst
Birst is an enterprise-graded BI platform, offering built-in automation, AI-driven insights, and a networked BI approach that connects data across teams. With smart data modeling, self-service dashboards, and powerful governance, Birst helps businesses make informed decisions without the hassle of complex setups.

Pricing: Not available. Requires talking to Sales.
08. Supernova (Prev: CanvaApp)
Supernova is a data exploration tool that allows teams to build dashboards without a fully-managed data stack. Canvas connects to Stripe, Quickbooks, Segment, Hubspot, and >150 other apps and lets you build dashboards and answer questions without having to set up and maintain a data warehouse.

Pricing: Starts at $1000/month.
09. Looker
Now part of Google Cloud, Looker is a self-service BI platform, standing out with its LookML, a flexible data modeling layer that lets data teams define metrics consistently across the company.
Looker also allows users to explore data themselves by adding filters and drilling down into dashboards and reports, without writing SQL to.
Pricing: Starts at $35,000/year. (~$2900/month). Learn more about Looker Pricing.
Related reading: Top 05 Affordable Looker Alternatives for Mid-sized Companies
10. Luzmo.io
Cumul is an embedded analytics platform that lets non-technical users build interactive dashboards with a drag-n-drop report builder. It offers flexible embedding options, supporting both Web Component and API embedding.
Pricing: Start at $995/month.
11. Dash
Dash is a framework for building analytics applications with Python. It’s free and open-source.
12. Explo
Explo is a embedding analytics tool. It allows you to embed dashboards into your applications using versatile embedding methods, including iframe and web components. Its no-code interface allows embedded viewers to easily interact and explore data.
Pricing: Starts at $1,995+/month

13. Domo
Domo Business Cloud is a low-code data platform that combines self-service analytics, data sharing & embedded analytics, interactive reporting, and data apps in one place.
Pricing: Not Available. Estimatied to start at $10K per year.
14. Good Data
GoodData is a cloud-based business intelligence platform that provides a headless, API-first analytics engine. It connects directly to cloud data warehouses, enabling real-time querying and reporting without data duplication.
The platform features a semantic data model, ensuring consistent metrics and definitions across reports. Users can build dashboards with a drag-and-drop interface or run custom SQL queries for deeper analysis. AI-powered insights automate anomaly detection and trend analysis.
Pricing: Start at $12,000/year

15. Helica Insights
Helica Insights is one of the best open-source BI tools, offering standard BI functionalities like embedding, self-service reporting, canned reports, or data delivery via email.
Pricing: Free
16. Izenda
Izenda is an embedded analytics platform designed for seamless integration into applications. It provides a self-service reporting engine, allowing end users to create, customize, and share reports without IT involvement.
At its core, Izenda runs on a modern, modular architecture, embedding directly into web applications via APIs. It connects to multiple databases, supports real-time querying, and enables multi-tenant deployments for SaaS environments.
Pricing: Not available
17. Metabase
Metabase is an open-source SQL BI tool. It’s easy to use but limited in self-service functionalities. One of its notable features is Question Feature, which lets you answer your ad-hoc data questions. In “Simple question” mode, you can filter, summarize, and visualize data.
If you have a more complex question, you may choose “Custom questions” which gives you a powerful notebook-style editor to create more complex questions that require joins, multiple stages of filtering and aggregating, or custom columns.
Pricing: Free for self-hosted plan. Metabase cloud plan starts at $85/month.

18. Mode (acquired by Thoughtspot)
Mode is a collaborative data platform that combines SQL, R, Python and visual analytics in one place. Users can also set schedules to share updated reports through emails and Slack. Other features include collaborative data editing, interactive charts, white-label embeds, and more.
Pricing: Around $2000/month.
19. Observable HQ
Observable is a collaborative data platform created for data scientists and developers. It offered a shared for users to work together and create complex graphs, charts, and other visual representations of data.
Pricing: User-based pricing. Free plan available. Starts at $22/month

20. Pan Intelligence
Pan Intelligence is an AI-powered, low-code BI solution for SaaS, offering self-service analytics, white-label embedded reporting and predictive analytics, with strong DevOps/APIs controls.
Pricing: Not Available.

21. PowerBI
Power BI is, without a doubt, a well-known BI platform in the industry with a strong modeling capability and a rich set of visualization. It is also the first choice for every company that has adopted the Microsoft eco-system.
Pricing: For personal use, Power BI can be downloaded on your local machine for free. However, if you want to use more Power BI services, you will need to pay $9.99/user/month for a cloud solution or $4,995/month for a dedicated server (cloud compute and storage resource)
22. Amazon Quicksight
Amazon Quicksight is a lightweight BI platform for as-needed use. It’s designed for simplicity, and convenience of use, hence it might lack some standard BI functionalities.
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go pricing. Starts at $24/user/month.

23. Redash
Redash is a popular open-source SQL-based BI tool that can be installed easily on your local environment to get a simple SQL-to-chart functionality going.
Pricing: Free

24. SeekTable
Seektable is a lightweight BI tool for ad-hoc & operational reporting with web-based pivot tables, charts, and usual tabular reports. SeekTable can connect to most popular databases (SQL, MongoDb, ElasticSearch, XMLA OLAP), or can be used for self-service CSV data analysis.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plan starts at $25/user/month.

25. Selfr.ai
Selfr is an AI, conversational BI platform that allows users to get quick answers to their data questions without writing code.
Pricing: Not Available.

26. Sigma Computing
Sigma is a collaborative analytic platform that offers a familiar spreadsheet interface, enabling business users to explore and get insights without a steep learning curve. Its Tableau/Excel-like UI makes it easier for non-SQL users to build reports and present data.
Pricing: Estimated to start at $40K per year

27. Sisense
Sisense is an enterprise-grade analytics platform. It takes pride in going beyond traditional business intelligence to provide organizations with the ability to infuse analytics everywhere, embedded in both customer and employee applications and workflows.
Pricing: Sisense ballpark pricing is $21K per year.

28. Tableau
One of the most popular BI tools, Tableau's strong visualization capabilities make it stand out among other visual BI tools. If your company is looking for a BI product with fancy charts to present to your management or your board of directors, Tableau will always be the first choice.
Pricing: User-based pricing. Creator, who builds the data flow and visualization in Tableau Desktop, is charged $70/user/month. Explorer and Viewer are relatively cheaper at $35 and $12 per user per month respectively for on-premise deployment.
Related reading: Tableau vs Looker: What Data Community Said About These Most Popular BI Tools

29. Toucan Toco
Toucan Toco is an embedded analytics BI tool designed for data storytelling and quick deployment. The platform features a no-code dashboard builder, allowing teams to create interactive reports without technical expertise.

Pricing: Not Available.
30. Trevor. io
Trevor is a low-code BI tool. It aims to empower non-technical business users to build reports, perform lookups, and get ad hoc answers on the fly using a simple yet intuitive query builder (or SQL).
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plan starts at $75/month.

For more Business Intelligence recommendation, check out:
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