10 Best Embedded Analytics Tools (+ Evaluation Guide)

What makes a good embedded analytics solution

Let’s start with a real-life use case - from one of Holistics's favorite customers. Let’s call them Z.

In this article, we’ll delve into how Z company solved their embedded analytics problems, and their experience with embedded BI solutions, and from then we will extrapolate what a good embedded analytics tool looks like - while trying to be as objective as we can be.

About Z

(Of course, Z is not a real name - it’s made up for the sake of anonymity)

Z is a data consultancy company - their clients are mostly manufacturing or retail companies that might lack analytics capabilities to produce insights (or to produce insights fast enough), so they come to Z.

Z’s analytics team then works with the provided data, and share the results of their analysis with the clients, in the form of embedded dashboards.

Common Embedded Analytics Challenges

Let’s talk about the challenges Z faced when developing embedded dashboards for their clients. Though these are challenges posed upon Z’s data team - they might be common and universal to most teams with embedded use cases.

1. Long Turnaround Time

To land a client (or alternatively, to get your internal data consumers to be more confident with analytic), you need to deliver insights fast, you need to prove the value of data and the value of your analytics team as soon as possible. You must be able to create embedded dashboards and ship them to business stakeholders in days, not weeks or months.

Here’s how our customer put it:

“But what we were finding was that when we're in the early stages of a relationship with a new client, it becomes difficult to engage them with this information. What we wanted to do was bring them into the data a little bit more, let them explore the information a little bit more. You could send them Power Bi, for example. You can publish to Power BI Web, but you can't easily share that with another organization, make it really tricky to do.”

At that time, Z was using PowerBI and High Charts - and they didn’t make it easier to share insights with external stakeholders.

"Piece of information really exciting, or we're coming up to a key event for that client, let's share some information. At Christmas, we see a big event in most of the markets that we operate in, so let's add something for them. Let's add a Christmas performance chart. Let's show them how well they're doing. If they want to do that, we don't bother. We'll just send them an Excel file. If we wanted to get it onto that High Charts dashboard, we're going to have to engage with data engineering, get a new feed into the dedicated database that we use for that high charts instance, test all the charts, and by the time they've done that, you know what, it's probably not needed anymore.”

Long turnaround time can even affect customer acquisition. The nature of their business is B2B, and it often takes a lot of time - months, maybe years, to successfully land a client. The engagement process is lengthy - you have to go through pre-sales conversations, POC and pilots program, not to mention admin and paperwork! The faster Z can pass through each round, the sooner they make money.

2. Lack of Interactivity: Even when Z data team successfully jumps through a bunch of logistical and analytics loops to ship out an embedded dashboard, the struggle does not end there.

You need to respond quickly to stakeholders’ requests - add that filter, add those metrics, or change this dashboard. But with PowerBI or Highcharts, Z team often feels their energy flag going through a lengthy management process: Involve data engineering team, get the feed changes, get it tested, and get approvals.

As they put it:  “We don't want to do any of that. If the analyst knows what's needed, let the client-facing analyst do it and let them empower them to control that.”

Embedded Analytics Evaluation Guide

It's hard to define a good embedded analytics tool - I wager a good solution should be aligned with your business needs and data literacy. But based on Z case study and based on our interview with a few data consultancy companies where embedded analytics lie at the heart of their business models - we ferret out some of the key criteria they use when shopping for an embedded BI.

01. Time to Market

No one wants to spend weeks to months just building embedded web reports. And not just time; this usually also requires a lot of data engineering resources.

To achieve this, data consultancy companies often look for embedded BI tools with self-service report builders so that analysts and even non-analysts can make changes to the dashboards using curated and governed datasets. They also look for BI tools with a semantic modeling layer - which allows the data team to manage data logic centrally, define and reuse data models to save time, and avoid writing SQL repeatedly.  

02. Integration and Scalability
A good embedded BI tool should be scalable. Scalable in this context refers to being easily deployable and platform-agnostic; whether on-premise with end-users, hosted in a cloud-based infrastructure, or at a data center, a good embedded BI tool should be able to integrate seamlessly.

A scalable BI tool opens up access to insight for everyone; embedded dashboards and reports should no longer be restricted to data teams and C-level execs but to the entire enterprise.

This helps to foster a shared understanding within the business and assists organizations that aim to achieve a truly extended, data-driven enterprise.

03. Access control and Row-level Security
Access control logic is a no-brainer. Your preferred embedded business intelligence tool should be able to provide security and access control logic on its embedded dashboards and reports.

By implementing security features such as row-level security and permissions configuration, organizations should be able to control and restrict which customer sees what data, as well as the permissions given to each customer per shared report.

04. Self-service report builder and interactive reporting

Any effective embedded analaytics software ought to offer some form of self-service exploration. Some, for instance, allow users to do as much as design their models and queries.

At the very least, embedded bi tools should allow your consumers to drill down and filter within your delivered dashboards and reports. Consumers should be able to drill down into visualizations, apply pertinent filters, and interact with the embedded pre-delivered reports and dashboards. This encourages a culture of data-driven discovery and gives consumers the impression that their data is in their hands by providing interactivity within an embedded UI. Make sure to talk to sales and check product demos to ensure you are fully aware of the embedded tool's full range of self-service capabilities.

10 Best Embedded Analytics Platforms For Modern Data Stack

Following the above use cases and criteria, we make a list of the 10 best embedded BI tools. Let’s dive in.

01. Holistics BI

In Holistics, analysts build and maintain analytics logic in Holistics semantic modeling layer. Non-analysts - account managers, and data consumers - can then build and deliver embedded dashboards without writing SQL. These reports can also be shared with external stakeholders via one-time shareable links to email, Slack, webhooks, etc.

Its key features include:

• Semantic Layer Holistics provides a data modeling layer to centralize metric definitions, allowing data teams to define models once and reuse them later.
• Interactive control with self-service analytics features. This allows non-technical users to explore data (by adding filters) on embedded dashboards. Provides customers with a high-quality analytical experience.
• Platform-Agnostic: Holistics dashboards can be embedded in any web application software irrespective of the language it’s built on. Whether it’s Ruby, Nodejs, Python, or even Elixir, we've got you covered!
• Security: Holistics uses embedded web tokens and iframes to deliver security and access control on its embedded dashboards. By configuring these permissions and security settings, you can decide who sees the data and what data they have access to.
• White-labeling and dashboard as code - which allows the data team to have full control over embedded dashboards' design, content, and styling.
• Git Integration: Data team controls codebase quality and knows who changes what when - making embedded analytics workflow more maintainable and governable.
• Dbt integration.

Pricing: Holistics’s embedded analytics solution starts $200/month and comes with unlimited viewers, unlimited reports created, and all functionalities included.

Case study: See how ARD, the 2nd largest broadcaster in the world, used Holistics to deliver insights to over 2000 users.

02. Tableau

“Your data, where your customers need it” - is a way to describe Tableau's embedded analytics capabilities.

Tableau's embedded analytics features include:

• Embedding API for integrating Tableau visualizations into applications, a REST API for user and content management
• External Authorization Servers for single sign-on, and support for SAML, OpenID, Active Directory, and Kerberos for additional authentication options.
• Tableau Viz Lightning web component for Salesforce, mobile app templates, a Document API for data source management, and user filtering for personalized data views.
• Easy integration: You can rapidly and easily incorporate Tableau-embedded analytics into your products, applications, and online portals using Tableau APIs and Developer Tools.
• Rich Visualization Options: If your business stakeholders are big on visualization and data storytelling then Tableau is the go-to choice.

See how Ocado Retail, a joint venture monetizes its wealth of data using Tableau-embedded analytics.

Pricing: Tableau has tiers of pricing available for embedded analytics, but this isn’t made public. You can schedule a time for an inquiry here with the team for a personalized quote.

03. Domo Everywhere

With Domo Everywhere, you can host your embedded analytics solution or let it be hosted for you.

• Embedding part of the dashboards (Cards) or the entire dashboards.
• Mobile-friendly UI: Domo Embedded offers a unique approach with responsive design capabilities. This means that embedded reports be easily accessible on mobile devices.
• Self-service: Domo Everywhere allows users to filter content, go down to certain aspects, and provide linked analysis and chart-specific interactions. You can also customize display options, including: Dashboard title, Filter bar, Export of the raw data of each Card to CSV, Persist filters, which automatically append pfilter parameters to the end of any custom interaction links.
• Another feature that’s especially useful for educational institutions or publishing companies is Publishing content to subscriber organizations. It supports individual and auto-subscriptions, allowing subscriber organizations to receive all publications from your organization.

Case Study: See how Domo streamlined reporting for DHL Partners using their embedded analytics.

Pricing: With Domo, you can create a free trial account and get a test drive of the software. A detailed and personalized quote for Domo can be found here.

04. Explo

Explo is a customer-facing analytics platform designed for integration into various SaaS platforms and web portals. It specializes in offering embedded BI, dashboard visualization, and reporting solutions.

Explo’s key embedding features include:

• AI Integration. Explo’s AI allows users to create visualizations with a single natural language prompt and easily make modifications by asking.
• Flexible embedding. You can embed Explo dashboards and reports directly in your application, email them directly, send out share links, or even white-labeled portals.
• 17 visualization options, including more advanced options like Spider Chart and Scatter Plot.

Pricing: Free plan with unlimited internal dashboard and viewers. Paid plan starts from $695/month

Case Study: See how Lula, a premier delivery solution for convenience retailers, built customer-facing analytics with Explo.

05. Looker

Similar to Holistics, Looker has a code-based modeling layer with self-service data exploration. This allows analysts to quickly create and ship embedded dashboards to clients while ensuring metrics are managed centrally and accurately.

Looker’s embedded analytics solution offers:

• Diverse embedding options: Private, SSO embedding, and SSO embedding with SDK.
• Git Version Control. This allows the data team to easily maintain a large numbers of dashboards as more are created. They can track who changes what when, and roll back if necessary.
• LookML. Using LookML, dashboards can be version-controlled, reused or easily maintained across different tenants.

Case Study: Wix presented a case study on how they empowered millions with Looker’s embedded business intelligence feature.

Pricing: Looker’s seat-based model for embedded analytics might be off-putting for SMBs. Looker has tiers of subscriptions depending on the number of users involved in the plan. There are the Standard, Advanced, and Elite packages, ranging from $66000, $132000, and $198000 per annum, respectively.

Related reading: Community Crowd-Sourced BI Tools Comparison Matrix: Feature-to-Feature Comparison

06. Power BI

Power BI’s embedded analytics is rich in functionalities - often allowing customers to lodge dashboards and reports into their existing applications and deliver engaging data experiences so they can act based on the knowledge gained from your solution's data.

Some of its key features include:

• Flexible Embedding. With PowerBI, you can create an app that employs non-interactive authentication methods like SSO(single sign-on). With this, your clients - who are most likely external users can read the embedded content without necessarily logging in with their Power BI accounts.
• High Affinity with Microsoft solutions: PowerBI embedded has a high affinity with other Microsoft products; for example, Power Automate can be leveraged to monitor interactions in embedded analytics without a developer’s services.
• Multi-factor authentication before sign-in.
• Embedded Usage Monitoring
• Strong customizability for visualizations, charts, and reporting functionalities.

Case Study: Here’s how Edsby uses embedded analytics to deliver full-spectrum learning and unlock new opportunities.

Pricing: $109.89 per month, which means $9.99 for publishers, and each viewer gets to pay $9.99 with a maximum of 10. The more viewers you have, the more you pay.

07. Qlik Sense

Qlik makes powerful embedded data analytics easy by incorporating it into your users' workflows by combining data sources. Regardless of your company size, you can create unique embedded analytics dashboards for your consumers.

*Image Source: https://www.qlik.com/us/products/qlik-sense*

• Capability APIs: organizations can embed Qlik Sense visualizations into their web applications, build Qlik Sense visualizations instantly, and obtain data from the field by using Qlik’s Capability APIs.
• Interactive analytics: Qlik Sense embedded analytics improves knowledge sharing and user experience on your website and mobile app by using interactive analytics to uncover data-driven insights and pique interest and engagement.

Pricing: $330 per month with a maximum of 11 users.

08. GoodData

GoodData is an AI-fueled data analytics platform for creating customized data products with advanced interactive analytics capabilities.

GoodData’s key embedding features include:

• Comprehensive embedding options: You can either add GoodData dashboards to your website using iframes, or use GoodData.UI library. GoodData.UI  is a Typescript framework for building analytical web applications on top of GoodData Cloud and GoodData Platform, offering Web components, React components, and Rest API clients.
• AI integration that enables users to build charts and dashboards with drag-and-drop UI and leverage AI for more deep-dive analysis like predictive forecasting or clustering segmentation.
• A comprehensive suite of visualization options and interactive controls.
• Analytics as code where you can describe your analytics logic using code, CI/CD, version control, and refactoring at scale.

Pricing: Embedded pricing starts from $1500/month, with unlimited users and data. You’ll be charged by platform fee and the number of workspaces.

09. Metabase

Metabase is an open-source business intelligence suitable for SMEs who want to quickly build customer-facing or in-app analytics. Its open-source nature allows for extensive customization and extension, enabling your data team to tailor the analytics experience to specific business needs or integrate with other tools and systems.

Metabase’s key embedded analytics features include:

• Interactive Dashboards and Visualizations. All basic visualization and interactive options that users can customize, interact with, and embed into applications.
• Sandboxing for Security. Metabse’s robust data sandboxing capabilities let you give granular permissions to rows and columns for different groups of people. This ensures that users can only access data they are authorized to see, maintaining data privacy and compliance.
• Flexible Embedding Options. You can either embed individual charts or entire dashboards into external applications.
• Supports shareable links for dashboards and insights, enabling users to easily share data-driven insights both internally and externally.
• White labeling for a more on-brand analytics experience is also available.

Pricing: Metabase’s cloud licenses start from $85/month.

10. Preset

Preset is a cloud-hosted data exploration and visualization platform built on top of the popular open-source project Apache Superset.

Preset’s key embedding features include:

• Row Level Security (RLS) rules for fine-grained permissions.
• Advanced SQL editor, which allows for more deep data analysis and exploration.
• SAML Single sign-on integration with Okta and Google.
• Comprehensive visualization options.
• Sharing and collaboration tools, including Slack schedules and Data alerts.

Pricing: Preset’s dashboard embedding is only available to Pro and Enterprise plans, which starts from $25/month/user.

Pricing: Holistics’s embedded analytics solution starts $/months and comes with unlimited viewers, unlimited reports created, and all functionalities included.

Wrap-Up

Embedded BI presents an opportunity for a fresh data-driven culture, one that can help companies yield a higher ROI by saving time and allowing business stakeholders to interpret data according to their needs contextually.

Thinking of where to start?

Reach out to sales to discuss the future of a tailored Holistics embedded analytics solution or explore a free trial here.