3 ms·

Just like to say that django sql explorer has been very useful in getting a few non-technical people (who know sql) investigating the state of our databases, th

by lsh 10y ago

Just like to say that django sql explorer has been very useful in getting a few non-technical people (who know sql) investigating the state of our databases, their relations and attempting to express reports they need. I'm hoping their work will be easy to translate into Metabase 'questions' while I pull our reporting project together. http://www.metabase.com/ http://www.metabase.com/

abrookewood 10y ago
How is it different to Metabase? They look like they do very similar things. Can I ask why you are using both?
- lsh 10y ago
  They do do very similar things, Metabase even has a raw sql interface hidden away. Metabase however has a better interface in many regards but especially in it's 'Questions' interface - under the hood it's generating SQL, but it gives any person just enough flexibility to select, filter and aggregate results and then turn them into graphs and stick the graphs on a dashboard. I don't particularly like Metabase's false peppiness - it's a bit like Slack's "You look good today!" type messages - that really get under my skin, and the blue+light-grey on white colour scheme. For those who do know SQL and write the majority of the reports, Django SQL Explorer was a great drop-in just-works lib to get insight into several of our data silos.
arikfr 10y ago
I hope you don't mind the self plug: I think Metabase has support for raw SQL, but if you find it hard to translate to Metabase "questions", it sure will be easy to translate into queries in Redash... In Redash you create visualizations from regular SQL queries (although we do support adding parameters and such). https://redash.io https://redash.io https://github.com/getredash/redash https://github.com/getredash/redash Disclaimer: I'm the author/founder of Redash.
- lsh 10y ago
  I don't mind the plug at all. I know Metabase supports raw queries, but we're going from normalised schemas to 'flattened' denormalised ones to help the reporting effort. At the same time, I don't expect the whole organisation to know SQL while I do expect them to make a slight effort to use Metabase's 'Question' interface (if they want data out). I'll be sure to take a look at Redash
  - lsh 10y ago
    Well done on Redash - It looks and feel very nice. I'll definitely keep an eye on it, but Metabase's 'Questions' and visualisations are a bit more polished for now.
    - arikfr 10y ago
      I guess that's the kind of polish VC money buys :-) I went the bootstrap/community route. But I hope that in about two months we will have funds to hire a UI/UX designer to improve the user experience and general look and feel.
      - lsh 10y ago
        > I guess that's the kind of polish VC money buys :-) quite possibly. I've also read some of their bug threads and they're quite discerning (protective?) of what makes it in from the community. so, money+perfectionism, perhaps. but honestly - their 'questions' interface is a hell of a lot more fun than sql. thanks to ORMs, my sql knowledge is really quite rusty as well and the simple/constrained "select, filter, aggregate" options on a single table or data source lets me faceroll what I need.
- fgasparini 10y ago
  I use both Metabase and Redash in the company that I work for. Both are really great tools and can replace (at least in part) expensive BI tools. I'm using both not because they are complementary, but at this moment they have a distinct feature set and no one has all the features that I want/need. Btw, congrats for the Mozilla award, really well deserved! https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2016/10/03/moss-supports-four-more-open-source-projects-with-300k/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2016/10/03/moss-supports-four-...
tlrobinson 10y ago
Hey thanks for mentioning Metabase, I work there. Not to hijack this thread, but I'm happy to answer any questions. We do have raw SQL (and Mongo/Druid/etc) mode if that's your preference, or if you can't express something in our graphical query builder. There's also a neat little feature that will translate your query builder query to the equivalent SQL to use as a starting point if you can't express something using the UI. We also have parameters so you can parameterize questions (both graphical and SQL) on a dashboard. Finally, we recently started added permissions and groups, so Metabase will be able to grow with your company. A lot more to come there too.

by lsh 10y ago

abrookewood 10y ago

How is it different to Metabase? They look like they do very similar things. Can I ask why you are using both?

lsh 10y ago
They do do very similar things, Metabase even has a raw sql interface hidden away. Metabase however has a better interface in many regards but especially in it's 'Questions' interface - under the hood it's generating SQL, but it gives any person just enough flexibility to select, filter and aggregate results and then turn them into graphs and stick the graphs on a dashboard. I don't particularly like Metabase's false peppiness - it's a bit like Slack's "You look good today!" type messages - that really get under my skin, and the blue+light-grey on white colour scheme. For those who do know SQL and write the majority of the reports, Django SQL Explorer was a great drop-in just-works lib to get insight into several of our data silos.

arikfr 10y ago

I hope you don't mind the self plug: I think Metabase has support for raw SQL, but if you find it hard to translate to Metabase "questions", it sure will be easy to translate into queries in Redash... In Redash you create visualizations from regular SQL queries (although we do support adding parameters and such). https://redash.io https://redash.io https://github.com/getredash/redash https://github.com/getredash/redash Disclaimer: I'm the author/founder of Redash.

lsh 10y ago
I don't mind the plug at all. I know Metabase supports raw queries, but we're going from normalised schemas to 'flattened' denormalised ones to help the reporting effort. At the same time, I don't expect the whole organisation to know SQL while I do expect them to make a slight effort to use Metabase's 'Question' interface (if they want data out). I'll be sure to take a look at Redash
- lsh 10y ago
  Well done on Redash - It looks and feel very nice. I'll definitely keep an eye on it, but Metabase's 'Questions' and visualisations are a bit more polished for now.
  - arikfr 10y ago
    I guess that's the kind of polish VC money buys :-) I went the bootstrap/community route. But I hope that in about two months we will have funds to hire a UI/UX designer to improve the user experience and general look and feel.
    - lsh 10y ago
      > I guess that's the kind of polish VC money buys :-) quite possibly. I've also read some of their bug threads and they're quite discerning (protective?) of what makes it in from the community. so, money+perfectionism, perhaps. but honestly - their 'questions' interface is a hell of a lot more fun than sql. thanks to ORMs, my sql knowledge is really quite rusty as well and the simple/constrained "select, filter, aggregate" options on a single table or data source lets me faceroll what I need.
fgasparini 10y ago
I use both Metabase and Redash in the company that I work for. Both are really great tools and can replace (at least in part) expensive BI tools. I'm using both not because they are complementary, but at this moment they have a distinct feature set and no one has all the features that I want/need. Btw, congrats for the Mozilla award, really well deserved! https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2016/10/03/moss-supports-four-more-open-source-projects-with-300k/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2016/10/03/moss-supports-four-...

tlrobinson 10y ago

Hey thanks for mentioning Metabase, I work there. Not to hijack this thread, but I'm happy to answer any questions. We do have raw SQL (and Mongo/Druid/etc) mode if that's your preference, or if you can't express something in our graphical query builder. There's also a neat little feature that will translate your query builder query to the equivalent SQL to use as a starting point if you can't express something using the UI. We also have parameters so you can parameterize questions (both graphical and SQL) on a dashboard. Finally, we recently started added permissions and groups, so Metabase will be able to grow with your company. A lot more to come there too.