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Business Intelligence · head to head

Rill Data vs Yellowfin

Rill Data logo

Rill Data

Business Intelligence

Local-first BI on DuckDB and ClickHouse with dashboards defined as code

From
$20/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Yellowfin logo

Yellowfin

Business Intelligence

Action-based business intelligence

From
$50/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Rill Data the seat price of 20 dollars is misleading as a budget figure: Rill’s own calculator puts a small two-seat project at around 256 dollars a month, with compute making up the great majority.; Yellowfin the pricing page publishes no rate, no minimum and no per-user price; every model ends in a Get Pricing form
  • They diverge on capability: Rill Data covers Local development, Yellowfin covers Automated Analysis.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Rill Data and Yellowfin actually diverge.

Attributes where Rill Data and Yellowfin differ
AttributeRill DataYellowfin
Starting price$20/month$50/month
Pricing modelPer user per month plus metered computesubscription
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, WindowsWeb, Mobile, Embedded
FoundedUnknown2003

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Business Intelligence).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Rill Data

  • Local development
  • Dashboards as code
  • Embedded DuckDB
  • Bring your own database
  • Alerts and scheduled reports
  • Embedded analytics

Only in Yellowfin

  • Automated Analysis
  • Data Stories
  • Collaboration
  • Signals
  • Embedded Analytics
  • Salesforce
  • Google Analytics
  • SQL Server

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Rill Data

  • An analytics team that wants dashboard changes to go through code review rather than being edited in a web UInot Yellowfin
  • Interactive exploration of event-scale data where a warehouse round trip per filter click is too slownot Yellowfin
  • Embedding fast slice-and-dice dashboards into a product where the underlying store is already ClickHouse or Druidnot Yellowfin
  • A data engineer prototyping a metrics layer locally on a laptop before committing to any cloud spendnot Yellowfin

Yellowfin

  • Embedding white-labelled dashboards and analytics into a software productnot Rill Data
  • Enterprise reporting with automated business monitoring and alertingnot Rill Data
  • Data storytelling and guided natural language querying for business usersnot Rill Data

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Rill Data

  • The seat price of 20 dollars is misleading as a budget figure: Rill’s own calculator puts a small two-seat project at around 256 dollars a month, with compute making up the great majority.
  • Dashboards are defined in YAML and SQL, so business users cannot create or change one without a developer and a Git workflow, which stalls self-service adoption.
  • It is built for the explore-a-metric pattern and does not produce pixel-perfect financial or operational reports, so most organisations still need a second reporting tool.
  • AI tokens and API calls are quota-limited per seat, with API overage at a cent per call, so programmatic consumers can create an unbudgeted line item.
  • As a smaller vendor competing against Looker, Tableau and Power BI, the ecosystem of consultants, templates and trained analysts is thin, which raises the cost of hiring for it.

Yellowfin

  • The pricing page publishes no rate, no minimum and no per-user price; every model ends in a Get Pricing form
  • One of the three embedded models is a revenue share, so Yellowfin takes a cut of the revenue your analytics module earns
  • Another model prices by server core, so scaling deployment hardware raises the licence cost independently of users
  • Getting a quote requires submitting a form with a marketing consent checkbox and a user-count band rather than seeing a rate card

Pricing, plan by plan

Rill Data

$20/month
  • Starter$20/month
    • Per seat, up to twenty seats
    • Three projects
    • Compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour
  • Growth$30/month
    • Per seat, up to one hundred seats
    • Ten projects
    • Compute at 0.20 USD per compute unit hour
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Annual platform licence with negotiated capacity
    • Unlimited seats and projects
    • Dedicated infrastructure

Yellowfin

$50/month
  • Team$50/month
    • Dashboards
    • Stories
    • Collaboration
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Advanced Features
    • Embedding
    • Custom SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Rill Data if

  • You need local development.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want dashboards as code.
Rill Data review

Choose Yellowfin if

  • You need automated analysis.
  • You work on Web, Mobile, Embedded.
  • You also want data stories.
Yellowfin review

Questions people ask

Is Rill Data or Yellowfin better?
Neither clearly leads. Rill Data starts at $20/month and Yellowfin at $50/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Rill Data or Yellowfin?
Rill Data starts at $20/month and Yellowfin at $50/month.
Does Rill Data or Yellowfin run on more platforms?
Rill Data runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows. Yellowfin runs on Web, Mobile, Embedded.
What is Rill Data best used for?
Rill Data is most often used for an analytics team that wants dashboard changes to go through code review rather than being edited in a web ui, interactive exploration of event-scale data where a warehouse round trip per filter click is too slow, embedding fast slice-and-dice dashboards into a product where the underlying store is already clickhouse or druid, a data engineer prototyping a metrics layer locally on a laptop before committing to any cloud spend. Of those, an analytics team that wants dashboard changes to go through code review rather than being edited in a web ui and interactive exploration of event-scale data where a warehouse round trip per filter click is too slow are not what Yellowfin is typically brought in for.
What can Rill Data do that Yellowfin cannot?
Rill Data covers Local development, Dashboards as code, Embedded DuckDB, Bring your own database. Yellowfin covers Automated Analysis, Data Stories, Collaboration, Signals.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Rill Data: Is Rill open source?

The Rill developer binary is open source and free to run locally; Rill Cloud is the paid product.

Yellowfin: What pricing models does Yellowfin offer?

Yellowfin offers three flexible models for embedded analytics: Aligned Utility Model (price per unit), Revenue Share Model (based on analytics revenue value), and Server Core (fixed price based on server deployment).

Source
Rill Data: How much does it actually cost?

Seats start at 20 USD per month, but hosted compute at 0.15 USD per compute unit hour typically dominates the bill. Bringing your own database removes the usage fee.

Yellowfin: Is Yellowfin pricing predictable and scalable?

Yes, Yellowfin pricing is simple, predictable and scalable with no hidden costs or surprises.

Source
Rill Data: Can business users build dashboards?

Not directly. Dashboards are YAML and SQL under version control.

Yellowfin: Are there limits on user access or development environments?

No limitations exist on access to functionality across users. There are also no limits on dev and test licenses, ensuring DevOps is covered.

Source
Rill Data: Which databases can back a deployed project?

DuckDB, ClickHouse, Druid, Pinot, Snowflake and others.

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