Lightdash is an open-source business intelligence platform built natively on dbt. It turns a data team's dbt models into a governed semantic layer, letting analysts define metrics as code and letting everyone else explore data - and, increasingly, ask AI agents questions - without writing SQL. Founded in 2020 (originally as Hubble in Y Combinator's S20 batch), it positions itself as an open, developer-first alternative to Looker and is backed by Accel, Shopify Ventures, Operator Partners and Y Combinator.
Metabase is an open source business intelligence and embedded analytics platform that lets anyone - not just analysts - ask questions of their data and build dashboards without writing SQL. Founded in 2014 and spun out of the Expa venture studio, it pairs a friendly visual query builder with a full SQL editor, connects to 20+ databases, and offers white-label embedding so software companies can ship customer-facing analytics. With a free self-hosted edition and paid Cloud and Enterprise tiers, Metabase is used by tens of thousands of companies worldwide.