Explore open source self-service analytics/visualization/BI tools

[MattTriano]

Fuzzy goal: I want low/non-technical users to be able to explore data in the data warehouse. The objectives are to:

1. Democratize data access (enable more people to answer questions with data).
2. Crowdsource questions from a pool of people with a broader set of experiences.
3. Serve curated dashboards. and if the system is deployed for use by more than one user,
4. Relieve engineers and analysts from having to answering some proportion of data questions.

Desired functionality: low-code or no-code Dashboarding or Data Visualization or Business Intelligence so that less/non-technical users can explore data sets in a data warehouse without technical assistance.

In subsequent comments, I'll explore different options, learn what features are available, and try to evaluate maintainability and ease of integration with the system.

[MattTriano]

Apache Superset (repo)

"Apache Superset is a data exploration and visualization platform"

Repo Stats

• project started in 2015
• 50k stars
• Commits per week: typically 20 to 40
• 46 contributors over the past month (active community)

Functionality:

• A no-code interface for visualizing datasets and assembling interactive visualizations into dashboards
• Excellent interface for developing queries
• An API for programmatic customization
• Can be configured to send reports or alerts to email or Slack

Security:

• Uses Flask-AppBuilder for Auth and general security.
• Supports Row Level Security and other highly granular controls (important to determine policy early and make a framework to ensure compliance).
• Integration with major authentication backends (database, OpenID, LDAP, OAuth, REMOTE_USER, etc)

Misc notes:

• There's an official image on Docker Hub (which makes it easier for devs to play with the platform)

[MattTriano]

Grafana (Repo)

"The open and composable observability and data visualization platform. Visualize metrics, logs, and traces from multiple sources like Prometheus, Loki, Elasticsearch, InfluxDB, Postgres and many more."

Repo Stats

• Project started in early 2013.
• 53.4k stars
• Commits per week: 75 to 150
• 147 contributors over the past month (very active community)

ToDo: dig in to functionality

[MattTriano]

Metabase (Repo)

"The simplest, fastest way to get business intelligence and analytics to everyone in your company"

Repo Stats:

• Project started in early 2015
• 31k stars
• Commits per week: 40 to 80
• 32 contributors over the past month

ToDo: dig into functionality

[MattTriano]

Redash (Repo)

"Make Your Company Data Driven. Connect to any data source, easily visualize, dashboard and share your data. "

Not comparably active

ToDo: cursory research