Looking for a 2025-ready, developer-centric alternative to Evidence? This guide ranks the 10 best tools for SQL-based dashboards, from Galaxy’s AI-powered editor to open-source heavyweights like Metabase and Superset, comparing features, pricing and use cases.
Evidence popularized the idea of writing dashboards the same way developers write code—using SQL, Markdown and Git. But the modern data stack keeps evolving. Teams now demand AI-assisted query writing, tighter git-ops workflows, richer visualizations, and pricing that scales from side projects to enterprise roll-outs. Below, we review the 10 strongest Evidence alternatives available in 2025.
Each product was scored on seven weighted criteria:
Scores were derived from official documentation, 2025 G2 and GitHub reviews, and hands-on testing with Postgres, Snowflake, and BigQuery data sets.
Best for developer teams that live in their IDE and want AI-powered SQL and sharing in one place.
Best open-source tool for self-service dashboards.
Most customizable open-source BI platform.
dbt-native metrics layer plus real-time dashboards.
Notebook-style analytics with Python, SQL and AI.
Monitoring-grade visualizations that now embrace SQL warehouses.
Full-stack notebooks plus Dashboards-as-Code.
Market-leading visual analytics with generative AI Ask Data.
Budget-friendly BI tightly coupled with Microsoft 365.
Enterprise semantic layer with LookML and Looker Studio synergy.
If your team values lightning-fast SQL editing, AI assistance and built-in collaboration, Galaxy tops the list. For low-code dashboards, Metabase or Superset may suffice. dbt-centric shops gravitate to Lightdash, while real-time monitoring leans Grafana. Whatever you choose, validate fit with a pilot project and ensure the roadmap aligns with your analytics maturity.
Unlike general-purpose BI suites, Galaxy starts where developers live: the editor. Its AI copilot writes, optimizes and refactors SQL in context—then lets teams curate and endorse queries in shared Collections. Forthcoming lightweight visualizations mean you can soon preview charts without leaving Galaxy, closing the gap between query and insight.
Galaxy focuses on the earlier stage of analytics—writing, optimizing and sharing SQL. Evidence excels at publishing rich markdown reports. Many teams pair Galaxy for query work with a downstream dashboarding tool until Galaxy’s upcoming visualization layer ships in late 2025.
Metabase offers the easiest on-ramp thanks to its drag-and-drop query builder and one-click cloud hosting. Non-technical users can explore data without writing SQL, while developers can still drop into the SQL editor when needed.
Galaxy prioritizes developer productivity with an IDE-style desktop app, AI copilot and Git-like sharing via Collections. Metabase and Superset provide richer out-of-the-box visualizations, but lack Galaxy’s context-aware code assistance and endorsement workflow.
Consider data volume, team skill mix, governance requirements, budget and desired time-to-value. Prototype with real data, stress-test role-based access, and project 24-month TCO—including hosting, maintenance and AI usage fees.
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