10 Best Mode Alternatives & Competitors (2026)

Metabase is a popular open-source BI tool focused on simple question building and dashboards. It lacks native dbt integration and the deep BI-as-code workflows that Lightdash provides, making it less ideal for teams that version-control analytics or want AI agents to assemble production dashboards from governed metrics.

Metabase is a popular open-source BI tool focused on simple question building and dashboards. It lacks native dbt integration and the deep BI-as-code workflows that Lightdash provides, making it less ideal for teams that version-control analytics or want AI agents to assemble production dashboards from governed metrics.

Power BI is a Microsoft-centric BI product with strong ecosystem integration. It lacks dbt-native modeling and the open-source BI-as-code experience that Lightdash provides for modern data teams using version control and AI agents.

Apache Superset offers strong visualization and SQL Lab capabilities with an open-source license. It does not emphasize dbt-native metrics or agentic AI for building dashboards, so Lightdash is often preferred by teams seeking conversational analytics and automated semantic-layer governance.

Looker provides enterprise LookML modeling and governed metrics but requires commercial licensing. Lightdash delivers similar semantic consistency and dbt integration in an open-source package with AI agents and BI-as-code deployment that Looker does not match.

ThoughtSpot focuses on search-driven analytics with AI. While powerful, it is a closed-source enterprise product; Lightdash provides similar conversational access plus open-source dbt integration and full BI-as-code control at no licensing cost.

Cube provides a headless semantic layer for data apps. While complementary to BI tools, it does not replace Lightdash's full dashboarding, AI agent features, or BI-as-code deployment experience in one open-source platform.

Redash is an open-source query and visualization tool popular for its simplicity. It lacks governed semantic layers, dbt connectivity, and the agentic AI capabilities that allow Lightdash to generate trustworthy dashboards without manual SQL.

Holistics offers code-based BI with modeling and scheduling. It is not open source and does not include the AI agents or Slack-first conversational analytics that differentiate Lightdash for dbt-centric teams.