Lightdash vs Visual Studio

Yes. Lightdash is free and open source under the MIT license. Self-hosting is completely free. Managed cloud services and enterprise features require separate licensing.

Standard subscriptions include access to more benefits, such as Azure dev/test pricing, monthly Azure individual credit, software and download access, services, training, and support. Monthly subscriptions offer flexibility but fewer benefits.

Lightdash reads dbt models and metric definitions directly. A team defines metrics once in dbt and reuses them across dashboards, exploration, and AI agents without redefinition.

There aren't any discounts available to start-ups, however an unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for specific scenarios like open source work.

Yes. As a modern BI platform for analysts, Lightdash supports full SQL capabilities alongside dbt model exploration and visual query builders.

In non-enterprise organizations, up to five users can use it. Enterprise organizations (greater than 250 PCs or greater than $1M annual revenue) cannot use it beyond academic/open-source scenarios.

Lightdash AI agents, available on paid plans, allow natural language queries against your data, generating SQL and visualizations automatically from questions.

Enterprise standard renews at $214.09/month (after initial $499.92); Professional at $66.59/month (after $99.99).

Yes. Lightdash's MIT-licensed core is completely self-hostable and free. Enterprise features and AI agents ship under separate licensing.