BrightGauge vs. Metabase

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
BrightGauge is a BI tool from ConnectWise that puts essential information in one place, providing visibility for more informed decisions. The user can customize BrightGauge dashboards and sync other business tools in its BI dashboard software for ultimate visibility. Users can also display data with embeddable gauges on public sites.
$325
per month
Metabase
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Metabase aims to bring data tools with the simplicity of consumer products to the crufty world of enterprise business intelligence. Their open source analytics and business intelligence applications connect to most commonly used databases to let anyone in a company ask questions, and create dashboards or nightly emails without knowing SQL. Metabase Enterprise enables the user to embed branded analytics into customer applications.
$85
per month (includes 5 users, then $5 per user, per month)
Pricing
BrightGaugeMetabase
Editions & Modules
Standard
$325
per month
Enterprise
$449
per month
Enterprise+
$635
per month
Starter
$85
per month (includes 5 users, then $5 per user, per month)
Starter
$85
per month up to 5 users
Pro
$500
per month up to 10 users
Growth
$749
per month (includes 10 users, then $15 per user, per month)
Enterprise
15,000
per year
Open Source
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrightGaugeMetabase
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$499 one-time feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSet up fee is waived for Enterprise+ customers. A discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BrightGaugeMetabase
Considered Both Products
BrightGauge
Chose BrightGauge
BrightGauge is part of the ConnectWise suite, we use PSA and CPQ. We have BG integrated with PSA and QBO.
Chose BrightGauge
BrightGauge is essentially Power Bi at the reporting level. In Power Bi, the data must be modeled, and reports must be created, developed, and shared. BrightGauge is a buffet of report creation in a more straightforward form. I use Power BI more than BrightGauge in my current …
Chose BrightGauge
BrightGauge offers a far better user experience, ease of use and richer data than using the built in reporting from ConnectWise PSA.
Chose BrightGauge
BrightGauge is by far the easiest to learn/use of the BI tools I have experienced. We had managers building their own dashboards with no outside help. It is not incredibly versatile though so if you want to get much more beyond taking the data and putting it in a chart or table …
Chose BrightGauge
No comparison between the dashboarding available natively in ConnectWise Manage and what you can easily do in BrightGauge.
Chose BrightGauge
We looked very briefly at Solar Winds, but due to Connectwise the reporting was not very accurate and was conflicted.
Chose BrightGauge
I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular …
Metabase
Chose Metabase
It does not stack up against Metabase, they complete each other.
Chose Metabase
I used Looker in a previous role and found it clunky, difficult to navigate, hard to collaborate on, and ultimately massively expensive. I evaluated Looker to see if it would be right to implement it as a solution in my current role, but Metabase was the clear winner - the ease …
Chose Metabase
I thought Metabase was the easiest option that allowed for flexibility. However, I did need dedicated engineering resources to get the system configured and basic queries started
Features
BrightGaugeMetabase
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.1
Ratings
1% below category average
Metabase
7.5
Ratings
8% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.20 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.80 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.20 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.7
Ratings
5% below category average
Metabase
8.3
Ratings
3% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.40 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.50 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages4.70 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.9
Ratings
5% below category average
Metabase
8.7
Ratings
5% above category average
Publish to Web9.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Report Versioning5.00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.20 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
5.9
Ratings
30% below category average
Metabase
8.8
Ratings
10% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining2.50 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.7
Ratings
3% above category average
Metabase
9.5
Ratings
11% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.60 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.20 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.30 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.30 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
6.8
Ratings
14% below category average
Metabase
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Mobile Application6.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile5.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.4
Ratings
5% below category average
Metabase
8.8
Ratings
12% above category average
REST API8.30 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Javascript API9.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
iFrames10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Java API6.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)3.50 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BrightGaugeMetabase
Small Businesses
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 8.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
BrightGauge
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Kyvos Semantic Intelligence Layer
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BrightGaugeMetabase
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BrightGaugeMetabase
Likelihood to Recommend
BrightGauge lets us know when we have critical issues that need solving. A massive influx of tickets all at the same time triggers an investigation. Usually, it is tied to a server going down, which we can address. It would not be helpful for a small MSP or IT department with just a few daily tickets. The stats are better used to track a large amount of clients.
Read full review
Getting data using query with multiple joins is very fast with Metabase, and role-based access to the reports can be provided to users. The only place it lags right now is the filter for page and page size. This comes with great support for container-based deployment and on-system deployment, too. I did both container and system direct installation, and direct deployment became a bit challenging. On the other hand, it really provides very good support for data representation.
Read full review
Pros
  • SQL queries can be presented in many different ways to illustrate the data. They can be used in lists, graphs, meter, etc.
  • The datasets frequency of updates can be customized to from 5 minutes to annually. It's very granular in this respect.
  • It allows dashboards to be shared outside your organization with clients, partners, and vendors to maximize collaboration and reporting.
Read full review
  • Store Data
  • Make Querying easy
  • Quickly ingest data from many sources
Read full review
Cons
  • Modifying data sets to bring in custom fields requires an experienced SQL engineer
  • Cost when bringing in lots of data sources can be prohibitive
  • Limited ability to format gauges and reports
  • Make MFA a requirement - this data is sensitive and giving the admin the ability to force MFA is a MUST!
Read full review
  • The layout could be more modern
  • Would be great to have a drag and drop option to build dashboards
Read full review
Usability
Usability is BrightGauge's strength. Granting the ability of virtually any user to be able to create a dashboard is incredibly valuable. If an organization very simple and straight forward reporting needs then BrightGauge is a perfect fit for them. Connecting to the dataset we used was very quick and easy and I imagine it would be the same for any major data source you would like to pull from.
Read full review
The tool serves as the purpose of what we were looking for. I am giving us eight because it is cumbersome and needs separate deployment on production; otherwise, it creates memory issues for small servers. Apart from this, this is an excellent tool, providing data features some analysts want. Its backend is heavy, but it works pretty smoothly on front-end users.
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Support Rating
We did not need to use BrightGauge's support for the entire time that we used it. Best support is always the one that isn't needed because nothing breaks.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular as time goes by
Read full review
It does not stack up against Metabase, they complete each other.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Faster compilation of Business Review material
  • For larger customers, the dashboarding has helped our customers to remain sticky and add services/revenue to our MSP. They want to add more fragments of their IT for the 1 pane rollup.
  • From a leadership perspective, BG has allowed me to make difficult staffing decisions with confidence. Detailed metric driven decisions on who is hitting KPIs/who isn't - as well as when data proved we were overstaffed and understaffed.
Read full review
  • Departmental Reporting - allows each department to measure and track KPIs
  • Visibility - everyone has access to the data they need and context on the rest of the business' goals
  • Churn - Helps to predict churn from our partners given their sales and forecasts
Read full review
ScreenShots