OSI-licensed open source
Open-source analytics tools let you analyse business data, website traffic and product usage on infrastructure you control. They fall into three groups: BI and dashboards for SQL data, web and product analytics for user behaviour, and analytical databases or observability stacks that power both.
This guide picks eight maintained projects with licences verified on their repositories on 2026-11-07. Pay attention to licence detail: Metabase is AGPL with a commercial enterprise directory, PostHog is MIT with an enterprise folder, and Plausible and Grafana are AGPL, which affects embedding and redistribution.
Tools, licences and pricing checked against vendor and repository pages on November 7, 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache Superset | Self-service BI and dashboards on SQL data | Free, open source (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 |
| Metabase | Non-technical teams exploring SQL data | Free, open source (self-hosted, AGPL); paid cloud and Pro/Enterprise plans, see vendor pricing | AGPL-3.0 |
| Matomo | Website analytics with full data ownership | Free, open source (self-hosted); paid Matomo Cloud, see vendor pricing | GPL-3.0 |
| PostHog | Product analytics with funnels, replays and feature flags | Free, open source (self-hosted); usage-based cloud, see vendor pricing | MIT |
| Plausible Analytics | Simple privacy-friendly website analytics | Free, open source (self-hosted community edition); managed cloud paid, see vendor pricing | AGPL-3.0 |
| Umami | Privacy-friendly analytics with an MIT licence | Free, open source (self-hosted); cloud plans available, see vendor pricing | MIT |
| ClickHouse | High-volume analytical queries and event data | Free, open source (self-hosted); ClickHouse Cloud paid, see vendor pricing | Apache-2.0 |
| Grafana | Operational and time-series dashboards | Free, open source (self-hosted); Grafana Cloud Free, Pro from $19/month plus usage, Enterprise from $25,000/year commit | AGPL-3.0 |
Best for: Self-service BI and dashboards on SQL data · Free, open source (self-hosted)
Apache Superset is a modern, enterprise-ready business intelligence web application. Users explore data, build charts and create dashboards, and connect to a wide range of databases.
Best for: Non-technical teams exploring SQL data · Free, open source (self-hosted, AGPL); paid cloud and Pro/Enterprise plans, see vendor pricing
Metabase is the easy, open-source way for everyone in a company to ask questions and learn from data. A hosted Metabase Cloud is available alongside the self-hosted edition.
Best for: Website analytics with full data ownership · Free, open source (self-hosted); paid Matomo Cloud, see vendor pricing
Matomo is a leading free and open analytics platform, a PHP and MySQL application you install on your own server and track sites with a JavaScript snippet. It was formerly known as Piwik.
Best for: Product analytics with funnels, replays and feature flags · Free, open source (self-hosted); usage-based cloud, see vendor pricing
PostHog ingests and stores analytics, errors, session replays and business data so teams can query and act on product usage. The repository is MIT licensed apart from an enterprise directory.
Best for: Simple privacy-friendly website analytics · Free, open source (self-hosted community edition); managed cloud paid, see vendor pricing
Plausible is an open-source, privacy-first web analytics tool that is a lightweight, cookie-free alternative to Google Analytics, available as managed cloud or a self-hosted community edition.
Best for: Privacy-friendly analytics with an MIT licence · Free, open source (self-hosted); cloud plans available, see vendor pricing
Umami is a privacy-first analytics platform covering traffic, campaigns, behaviour, conversions and revenue with no cookies, self-hosted or in the cloud.
Best for: High-volume analytical queries and event data · Free, open source (self-hosted); ClickHouse Cloud paid, see vendor pricing
ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database management system for generating analytical reports in real time. ClickHouse Cloud is offered by its maintainers as a managed service.
Best for: Operational and time-series dashboards · Free, open source (self-hosted); Grafana Cloud Free, Pro from $19/month plus usage, Enterprise from $25,000/year commit
Grafana is an open-source platform to query, visualise and alert on metrics wherever they are stored, widely used for time-series and operational analytics.
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| If you need… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Self-service BI for SQL data | Metabase, Apache Superset |
| Replace Google Analytics | Matomo, Plausible Analytics, Umami |
| Product analytics, funnels and replays | PostHog |
| Large event or log data | ClickHouse |
| Operational and time-series dashboards | Grafana |
Quick answers to common questions
Superset and Metabase for BI, Matomo, Plausible and Umami for web analytics, PostHog for product analytics, ClickHouse for storage and Grafana for time series.
Matomo has the broadest feature set, while Plausible and Umami are lighter and cookie-free.
Most of each repository is open source (AGPL for Metabase, MIT for PostHog), but each has an enterprise directory under a separate commercial licence.
Yes. Each is self-hostable, though ClickHouse, PostHog and Superset need more infrastructure than Umami or Plausible.
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