BI Alternatives 2026

Looking for a BI Alternative? Try the AI-Native Approach

Traditional BI tools are complex, expensive, and lock you in. Modern data teams are choosing tools that work with their existing stack and put AI at the center.

Why teams are looking for alternatives

The BI landscape has changed. These pain points drive teams to seek modern solutions.

Vendor lock-in

Traditional BI tools trap your metrics in proprietary formats. Your data definitions should be portable.

Rising costs

Enterprise BI pricing scales with seats and queries. Modern teams need predictable, usage-based pricing.

Complexity overload

Weeks to deploy, months to train. Your BI tool should accelerate your team, not slow them down.

Slow time-to-insight

Waiting on analysts for every question? Self-serve analytics should mean anyone can get answers.

Find your perfect alternative

See how Metricly compares to the tools you are evaluating

Why choose Metricly

Built from the ground up for modern data teams

dbt-native

Built on MetricFlow. Your semantic layer stays in dbt where it belongs. No duplicate metric definitions.

AI-first

Chat with your data in plain English. The AI understands your metrics and writes accurate queries.

Simple by design

Deploy in minutes, not months. No complex modeling required. Your dbt project is your source of truth.

Fair pricing

Pay for what you use, not per seat. Enterprise features without enterprise pricing.

Detailed comparisons

In-depth analysis of how Metricly stacks up against popular BI tools

Common questions about BI alternatives

Metricly is built for the modern data stack. It uses your existing dbt semantic layer (MetricFlow) instead of requiring you to redefine metrics in a proprietary format. Plus, AI-powered querying means anyone can get answers without writing SQL.
Yes, especially if you use dbt. Looker pioneered the semantic layer, but locks you into their ecosystem. Metricly gives you similar governed metrics using the open MetricFlow standard, with AI-powered access and predictable pricing.
Lightdash is a great open-source option, but requires DevOps resources to deploy and maintain. Metricly is fully managed with the same dbt integration, plus AI-powered querying that Lightdash does not offer.
Metricly is optimized for dbt users. If you are not using dbt yet, we recommend starting with dbt Core (free) to define your semantic layer. We can help you get started.
Metricly supports BigQuery, Snowflake, and Databricks. Since we use the MetricFlow engine, we support the same warehouses as dbt Cloud Semantic Layer.
Traditional BI tools charge per seat, often $50-150/user/month. Metricly uses usage-based pricing starting at $49/month with unlimited viewers. Enterprise features are included at every tier.

Ready to try a modern BI alternative?

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