Lightdash is an open-source BI platform built for dbt users, turning transformed data into governed metrics and self-serve dashboards.
Lightdash connects directly to dbt projects, so the metrics and dimensions defined in your transformation layer become the single source of truth for BI. Analysts build charts and dashboards with a visual interface while everything stays version-controlled in code. It supports major cloud warehouses and offers role-based access, scheduled deliveries, and embedding. Being open source, teams can self-host or use the managed cloud.
Lightdash treats metrics as code, which solves a persistent BI problem: the same number defined differently in five dashboards. By building directly on dbt models and metric definitions, it ensures every chart reflects the governed version of the truth, with changes reviewed through pull requests like any other code.
Analysts still get a friendly visual builder, scheduled deliveries, and embedding, so self-serve does not suffer. For analytics engineering teams already invested in dbt, Lightdash is the shortest path from transformation layer to organization-wide BI.
Teams commonly adopt it alongside a data warehouse migration or a dbt project maturation, when metric definitions finally need a governed presentation layer. Preview environments make dashboard changes reviewable before release, mirroring the workflow developers already know. Scheduled deliveries keep stakeholders informed without opening the tool.
Lightdash is free to self-host. Cloud plans are billed per user per month, with enterprise tiers adding SSO, advanced permissions, and dedicated support.
Analytics engineering teams already invested in dbt who want governance and self-serve BI without duplicating metric definitions in a proprietary tool.
Preview environments make dashboard changes reviewable before release, mirroring the workflow developers already know from application code.
Yes, self-hosted Lightdash is free; the managed cloud and enterprise features are paid per user.
Yes, Lightdash has a REST API and CLI for managing projects, metrics, and scheduled deliveries.
Lightdash’s dbt-native approach is more tightly coupled than Looker or Tableau, making it ideal for dbt-centric stacks but less general-purpose. Teams moving from spreadsheets to governed metrics find the transition natural, since the modeling layer already exists in dbt.