BI for Builders: How Superset Stacks Up in Modern Analytics - Issue 250
A deep dive into Apache Superset and Preset - how they compare to traditional BI tools and why they stand out.
Welcome to the Data Analysis Journal, a weekly newsletter about data science and analytics.
This week, I am back on a quest to find the one perfect BI tool we need.
Almost every app I work with uses a different tool, which, fortunately, gives me the opportunity to try out different visualization tools. I’ll be honest: I don’t enjoy many of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t fit specific use cases or teams.
A few months ago, I published a follow-up piece comparing Tableau vs. Power BI, stating that I find both tools overly complex and very expensive - neither would be my choice of tooling in 2025. This sparked discussions on LinkedIn, with people asking: If you don’t like these veteran tools, then what’s good?
I want a dashboard builder that doesn’t require a certificate to use, is quick to start with, easy to maintain and transfer ownership, lives in the cloud, supports version control, handles large datasets with diverse data sources, enables collaboration and cross-channel report distribution, offers a variety of visualizations, and doesn’t take 2 days to create a decent chart. Is that too much to ask?
Yes.
To add to that long list, I am an analyst representing BI and analytics, not a business stakeholder. Personally, I don’t mind slow speeds, multiple connectors, or filtering limitations (you can always work around filtering). Instead, the key for me is to have the ability to merge % and absolute numbers into one chart, color-code them, reformat x- and y- axes, move around legends, merge line and bar graphs into one view, change the dashboard layout, and ability to join/map 4-5 (or ideally more) data sources.
As much as I hate to say it, Tableau and Power BI are still the best at handling most of these today, with Looker covering nearly all of them (for a slightly higher price) and Omni confidently on its way to getting there (it only takes $650 million valuation).
That said, many growing teams don’t need such sophisticated BI support and are completely fine with basic chart options and a standard BI package. If that’s the case, many great tools can meet their needs, including free-tier and open-sourced apps that support Analytics 101 and handle many use cases well.
One such tool I’ll cover today is Apache Superset. Read below its pros, cons, and key considerations. Hopefully, this will help you understand whether Supeset (or its Preset) is a smart choice for your analytical use cases.
