New Visualization Tool Implementation (Open Source Alternative to Power BI)

[saratomaz]

🎯 Goal
Evaluate and select an open-source data visualization tool to replace Power BI for internal reporting and dashboards, with emphasis on support for multi-series graphs, ease of use, and maintainability.

📌 Context
We are currently using Power BI for reporting. However, due to licensing costs, vendor lock-in, and deployment limitations, we are exploring open-source alternatives.

Key requirements:

• Support for graphs with multiple data series
• Ability to handle non-time-based data (category x-axis)
• Friendly UI for both technical and non-technical users
• Self-hosted deployment

🔍 Comparison Summary

Tool	Time-Series Support	Category X-Axis	Multi-Series Ease	Notes
Grafana	✅ Excellent	⚠️ Tricky	⚠️ Technical setup	Best for real-time monitoring; not ideal for category charts
Redash	✅ Good	✅ Good	✅ SQL required	Flexible for analysts; SQL is a must
Metabase	✅ Good	✅ Excellent	✅ Very easy	Best UX for business users; supports both GUI and SQL

✅ Conclusion & Recommendation

Given our use case — primarily non-time-series data with updates occurring on a weekly basis — Grafana is likely overkill. It excels at real-time monitoring, which is unnecessary for our reporting needs. Its reliance on time-based axes also adds complexity for the kind of dashboards we build.

Between the remaining options:

• Metabase stands out as the most user-friendly and intuitive solution, especially for non-technical users.
• Redash is a solid option if we want more control via SQL and are okay with a more technical interface.