About Lightdash
Lightdash is an open source business intelligence platform that works with dbt. It is meant for data teams that want metrics defined once and reused across dashboards.
What it does
Lightdash reads metrics and dimensions from a dbt project, so the definitions live in code next to the data models. Business users can then explore charts and dashboards built on those definitions. The site describes the product as AI-first and says it helps teams get trustworthy insights from governed metrics.
Key features
- Metrics defined once in dbt
- Self-serve charts and dashboards
- Exploration without writing SQL
- Analytics definitions kept under version control
- Hosted option for teams that prefer it
Who it's for
Analytics engineers and data teams that already use dbt. Teams that want metric definitions in code, rather than in a BI tool's interface, will find the approach useful.
Pricing and good to know
The project is open source on GitHub, and the site offers a free start and a talk-to-sales option. Check the pricing page for hosted plan details. Lightdash works best when your dbt project is already well organised, because the dashboards inherit whatever the models define.
Highlights
- Define metrics once in dbt
- Explore data without writing SQL
- Build charts and dashboards for teams
- Keep metric definitions in version control
- Use a hosted service if preferred
