# Silicon vs Metabase: Pricing, dbt and AI Compared

URL: https://meetsilicon.com/vs-metabase/

> Looking for a Metabase alternative? How Silicon and Metabase compare on pricing, dbt metrics, AI answers in Slack and catching changes that break dashboards.

Compare / Silicon vs Metabase
# Silicon vs Metabase
Metabase is an open-source BI tool with a free self-hosted edition, paid cloud plans and its own semantic layer. Silicon reads your metrics from dbt, answers questions in Slack from those definitions, and checks each change to your dbt models against the dashboards that depend on it before it merges.
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## Choose Silicon if
- Your metrics live in dbt and you want one definition used everywhere
- You want changes to your dbt models checked against dashboards before they merge
- Many people need access and you want unlimited users on every plan
- You don't have a data team and want us to build and maintain your data foundation
## Metabase may fit better if
- You want a free, open-source tool you can host yourself
- A small team needs simple dashboards at a low monthly price
- Your data isn't modelled in dbt and you'd rather define metrics inside the BI tool
Side by side
## Side by side
| Silicon | Metabase
Pricing | Team $1,499/month and Pro $2,399/month, with unlimited users | Open source is free to self-host. Starter is $100/month for 5 users and Pro $575/month for 10, then $6-12 per extra user. Enterprise starts at $20,000/year
Metric definitions | Read from your dbt project, or defined in Silicon YAML | Defined in Metabase's own semantic layer (metrics, measures and segments)
AI answers | An AI analyst in Slack and the app, answering from your defined metrics with the query shown | Metabase AI, including Metabot in Slack. Customer-facing AI is on Pro
Changes that break dashboards | Checked on each dbt pull request, before the change merges | Dependency diagnostics lists broken questions after a column changes (Pro and Enterprise)
Dashboards in git | YAML in your repository, reviewed in pull requests | Remote Sync to git with pull request review (Pro and Enterprise)
Hosting | Hosted by Silicon, with your own cloud or VPC on Enterprise. Queries run in your warehouse | Self-hosted (free or paid) or Metabase Cloud
Help building your data foundation | Available as a data partnership. We build and maintain it with you | Software only, with support on paid plans
Based on metabase.com pricing and documentation as of October 2026. Prices and features change; check Metabase's site for the latest.
FAQ
## Questions, answered
### Is Metabase free? +
The open-source edition is free to self-host, with unlimited users. Paid plans start at $100 a month for five users on Starter, and Pro is $575 a month for ten users, with each extra user charged monthly.
### Is Silicon cheaper than Metabase? +
For a small team, usually not. Metabase Pro is $575 a month for ten users plus $12 for each extra user, and Silicon Team is $1,499 a month with unlimited users. The gap narrows as more people need access, and Silicon includes checks on dbt pull requests and the option of a data partnership.
### Does Metabase work with dbt? +
Metabase connects to the tables your dbt models build, and its metrics are defined in Metabase's own semantic layer rather than read from dbt. Silicon reads the metrics you already define in your dbt model YAML, so there is one definition to maintain.
### Can we move from Metabase to Silicon? +
Yes. Most teams define their core metrics in dbt first, then rebuild their most-used dashboards on top. Metabase can keep running during the move.
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## Tell us where your data lives today.
Book 30 minutes with the founder. Tell us where your data is today, and see Silicon running on sample data.
Book a demo
30-minute demo with the founder