Vizzly – the Metabase alternative
Build user-facing analytics, without compromise
Overview
Just like Vizzly, Metabase can be used for Embedded Analytics.
Embedding Analytics is an effective approach to providing valuable data to your users. Not only is this a great method for boosting engagement and retention metrics, but also a great opportunity to drive incremental revenue through cross-selling. Unfortunately, incumbent tools have forced users into a trade-off between time-to-market and control over product experience.
Whereas, Vizzly offers a solution for users to build modern analytics experiences without compromise.
What is Metabase?
Metabase is a business intelligence tool used for internal business analysis. As a secondary use case, the solution can be used for customer-facing analytics. The product is targeted at data analysts.
What is Vizzly?
Vizzly provides embedded analytics for SaaS, specifically designed for customer-facing apps. The platform offers extensive flexibility and customization options. When it comes to end-users, minimal data literacy is required.
Ease of implementation
Metabase
To connect data to Metabase, the user needs a baseline understanding of SQL. While a product person can set up the dashboard, Metabase also demands technical expertise during integration into customer-facing applications. For instance, developer input is essential for multi-tenant setup and authentication. However, the embedding process is relatively simple, as the code snippet is an iFrame.
Vizzly
Assuming you are using Vizzly Cloud, a non-technical stakeholder can get set up in no time. Developer input is only necessary for multi-tenant setup (for which we provide SDKs), or when you want to leverage Vizzly's developer tools for maximum control over the product experience. Vizzly also offers a self-hosted solution; the average setup time for this more technical version is still only 2-3 hours.
Customization
Metabase
Metabase offers basic styling through the UI in the dashboard builder. For some companies, this is sufficient as design is not front of mind (now or in the future). Because the dashboard embed sits in a customer-facing application, most companies desire much more control over the underlying CSS.
Vizzly
Vizzly offers multiple features to provide you full control over the look, feel and user experience of the dashboard. The most used being Vizzly's Theme API which allows the user to pass through CSS objects from their design system. Alternatively, you can also customize components within the dashboard, such as drop-downs, icons, date pickers, etc.
Extensibility
Metabase
A significant drawback of incumbent solutions, such as Metabase, is product extensibility. An analytics experience is more than a dashboard; however, because the Metabase embed is an iFrame, it sits inside your app as a separate entity. Not only does this have a performance impact, but it also won't interact with the rest of your app logic.
Vizzly
Vizzly can be embedded in React, Vue, Angular or Svelte. The JS-component is highly extensible with code should you want to customize anything and it will work your existing codebase and app logic. If you're a React user, Vizzly also offers a React Hook should you want direct access to the API for View and Dashboard creation.
Custom reporting
Metabase
Metabase does offer a custom reporting feature, enabling end-users to answer their own questions. However, the user experience is designed for analysts, which can alienate users based on their level of data literacy. This also isn't a natural stepping stone for Metabase, as it's primarily built for internal BI purposes.
Vizzly
One of Vizzly's core features is custom reporting (sometimes referred to as self-serve analytics). When enabled, end-users - your customers - can edit Views and Dashboards or create their own Views using the data you provide to them. With Vizzly, you can enable this functionality for some end-users and not others. You are always in control.
