Free BI tools in 2026: what the free plans and trials actually include in 15 tools (October 2026)

As of October 2026, seven BI tools have a permanent free cloud plan: Power BI, Google Data Studio, Zoho Analytics, Preset, Grafana Cloud, Hex, and Databox. Metabase, Apache Superset, and Lightdash are free with no user cap if you host them yourself. Most free plans stop you at sharing: free Power BI users can’t share reports, Databox Free has no sharing, and Zoho Analytics Free allows one other user. Data Studio is the only free cloud plan here with no stated cap on how many people you share reports with. Sigma, ThoughtSpot, Qlik Cloud Analytics, and Basedash offer trials of 7 to 30 days instead of free plans.

This is a compiled reference, not a ranking. Every limit and price below comes from the vendor’s own pricing page or documentation, opened on October 23, 2026. Where the vendor doesn’t say, the cell says “not published”. For what paid plans cost once you outgrow the free tier, see our BI tool pricing reference.

How we compiled this

We started from the questions buyers ask about free BI software, such as “what is the best free BI software?”, “which free business intelligence tools allow users to ask natural language questions of data?”, and “compare BI tools with the best free trial and lowest starting price”. For 15 tools that come up in those answers, we recorded:

1. Free option type: a permanent free cloud plan, a free open-source edition you host yourself, a free desktop app, or a trial only.
2. Free plan limits: users, rows or data volume, data sources, refresh frequency, and dashboard counts.
3. Sharing on the free plan: whether you can share dashboards with colleagues, only publicly, or not at all.
4. AI on the free plan: natural language questions, AI chart generation, or assistants, and their quotas.
5. Trial terms: length, which plan you trial, whether a card is needed, and what happens when it ends.
6. The first paid step: the cheapest paid plan, plus deployment, query model, row-level security, and SAML SSO.

Vendors change free tiers often, and some official pages disagree with each other. Where they do, we note it.

Which BI tools have a free plan in 2026?

Four tools in this reference have no free plan for private business data: Sigma (trial, plus Sigma Public for public data), ThoughtSpot (trial; a free embedded Developer edition), Qlik Cloud Analytics (trial), and Basedash (trial).

Which free BI tools let you share dashboards with your team?

Sharing is where most free plans stop. Under Microsoft’s license rules, free Power BI users “can’t use the Power BI sharing or collaborating features with others” unless the content sits in Premium or Fabric F64 capacity. Databox Free excludes sharing by link, TV, or embed, and Zoho Analytics Free shares with one other user. Tableau Public shares freely, but everything you publish “is not private and is freely accessible to anyone”.

The free options that do share privately are Data Studio (specific people, groups, or link), Preset Starter (up to 5 users, all admins), Grafana Cloud Free (3 active users), and Hex Community (published apps). Self-hosted Metabase, Superset, and Lightdash share with as many people as your server can handle.

Which free BI tools include AI or natural language questions?

Metabase is the only tool here where the in-app AI assistant works in the free edition: Metabot runs in open source if you “bring your own API key”, so you pay your model provider instead of Metabase. Grafana Cloud Free includes Grafana Assistant for 3 users with 40M tokens each per month. Databox Free includes its Genie analyst with 50 credits a month, and Hex Community gets 5 agent credits per editor per month.

Data Studio’s new Conversational Analytics is open to all users, but only on data agents built in BigQuery; Gemini in Data Studio and the Code Interpreter need a Pro subscription. Power BI Copilot is excluded from free SKUs and trials (Microsoft), Tableau Agent needs Tableau+, Cloud+, or the Cloud trial (Tableau), and Lightdash’s AI needs an Enterprise license key even when self-hosted (Lightdash).

How long are BI tool free trials, and do they need a credit card?

Sources: Power BI, Tableau, Data Studio, Zoho, Metabase, Preset, Lightdash, Grafana, Hex, Databox, Sigma, ThoughtSpot, Qlik, Basedash.

Two trial details are easy to miss. Microsoft’s own licensing page still mentions a 30-day Pro trial alongside the 60-day Fabric trial, and its Microsoft 365 sign-up route asks for a card. Sigma’s blog mentions a 14-day trial, but its help center and terms of service say 7 days.

What you pay when you outgrow the free option

This table is the fact card for each tool: the cheapest paid plan as of October 2026, how the product queries data, and where row-level security (RLS) and SAML single sign-on start.

Sources for prices: Power BI, Tableau, Data Studio, Zoho, Metabase, Preset, Lightdash, Grafana, Hex, Databox, ThoughtSpot, Qlik, Basedash.

Notes on each tool

Power BI. Best for: one analyst building reports in Power BI Desktop before the team buys Pro. Not ideal for: sharing anything for free. The free license covers “your own use” only, and Microsoft requires a work or school email to sign up.

Tableau. Best for: public portfolios (Tableau Public) or private desktop analysis (Desktop Free Edition). Not ideal for: business teams that need to share privately, which requires a paid annual license. Desktop Public Edition is “not for commercial use” per Tableau’s edition comparison.

Google Data Studio. Best for: free, shareable dashboards on Google Ads, GA4, Sheets, and BigQuery. Not ideal for: governed metrics or AI on non-BigQuery data. Google renamed Looker Studio back to Data Studio in April 2026.

Zoho Analytics. Best for: two people reporting on small business apps. Not ideal for: anything over 10,000 rows. The paid Basic plan is a flat account price, not per user.

Metabase. Best for: teams that can run a server and want unlimited users with a query builder and BYO-key AI. Not ideal for: teams that need RLS or SAML for free, since both start at Pro ($575 per month). Our Metabase alternatives comparison covers the paid options.

Apache Superset. Best for: engineering-led teams that want RLS and unlimited users at no license cost. Not ideal for: non-technical users who want a guided builder or built-in AI chat.

Preset. Best for: trying Superset without hosting it. Not ideal for: more than 5 people, scheduled reports, or embedding, all excluded from Starter.

Lightdash. Best for: dbt teams that want metrics defined in dbt YAML with no seat pricing. Not ideal for: teams without a dbt project, which Lightdash requires. See Lightdash alternatives for tools that don’t.

Grafana. Best for: operational and time-series dashboards on Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, and Prometheus. Not ideal for: business reporting with row-level security, which Grafana doesn’t document. Snowflake is an Enterprise plugin, and Grafana’s own pages disagree on whether Cloud Free includes it.

Hex. Best for: an analyst who wants SQL and Python notebooks and a few published apps. Not ideal for: teams that need scheduled runs, which start at Team ($75 per editor), or SAML, which Hex doesn’t support (SSO is OIDC on Enterprise).

Databox. Best for: one person tracking KPIs from 3 cloud apps. Not ideal for: SQL databases, which Databox Free excludes.

Sigma. Best for: Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks teams evaluating spreadsheet-style analysis on live warehouse data. Not ideal for: buyers who want a published price; Sigma is quote only, and the trial is 7 days.

ThoughtSpot. Best for: testing search-driven analytics and Spotter AI for 14 days. Not ideal for: AI on the cheapest plan, since Essentials excludes Spotter and Pro caps it at 25 queries per user per month.

Qlik Cloud Analytics. Best for: a full 30-day trial of the Premium tier. Not ideal for: free long-term use; Qlik Sense Desktop is “not free” as a rule, per Qlik support, though Qlik releases free unlock files for students and developers.

Basedash. Best for: teams that want to ask questions in plain English and get charts and dashboards on their own Postgres, MySQL, Snowflake, or BigQuery data, with the AI data analyst included in the trial. Not ideal for: anyone who needs a permanent free plan, open-source self-hosting, or a single-user price. There is no free tier; the 14-day trial needs no card, and the Startup plan includes $1,000 of AI credits a month. SSO, SCIM, embedding, and self-hosting are Enterprise only.

When is a free BI tool enough, and when should you replace it?

A free BI tool is enough when one or two people build reports for themselves, the data fits the plan’s limits, and nobody needs controlled access. The common triggers for paying are:

• Sharing with more people. Power BI, Databox, and Zoho Analytics charge as soon as reports go to a team.
• Data limits. Zoho Free stops at 10,000 rows and Databox Free at 3 sources.
• Access control. RLS and SAML SSO are paid features in Metabase, Preset, Hex, and Grafana.
• Hosting and maintenance. Self-hosted Metabase, Superset, and Lightdash cost nothing to license but need someone to run upgrades, backups, and security patches. Our open-source BI comparison covers that tradeoff.
• AI. Copilot, Tableau Agent, Zia, and Gemini in Data Studio all sit behind paid plans.

Which free option should you choose?

• You need to share dashboards with a team for free: Data Studio on Google data, or self-hosted Metabase or Superset on a SQL database.
• You want AI questions on your own data for free: Metabase open source with your own model key, or Grafana Cloud Free for operational data.
• You need row-level security without paying: Apache Superset, Lightdash (with dbt), or Data Studio’s filter by email.
• You can’t host anything: Data Studio, Preset Starter (up to 5 users), or Zoho Analytics Free (2 users).
• You want to test a paid product properly: Qlik’s 30-day Premium trial and Lightdash’s 21-day trial are the longest; ThoughtSpot, Hex, Databox, Grafana, and Basedash run 14 days without a card.

Frequently asked questions

Which BI tools are completely free with no user limit?

Self-hosted open-source editions are the only BI options with no user cap and no license fee as of October 2026. Metabase’s open-source edition (AGPL) lists unlimited users and no limits on dashboards or data sources. Apache Superset (Apache 2.0) has no documented caps and includes row-level security. Lightdash’s open-source edition lists unlimited seats but requires a dbt project. Grafana OSS is also free and unlimited, though it targets operational dashboards. The cost moves to hosting: you run the server, database, upgrades, and backups yourself.

Can free Power BI users share reports with their team?

No. Microsoft’s licensing documentation says users with the free Fabric license can create reports for their own use but can’t use sharing or collaboration features. A free user can view a report only when a Pro or Premium Per User author saves it in a workspace on Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or larger. For a small team, that usually means buying Power BI Pro at $14 per user per month, paid yearly, as of October 2026. Power BI Desktop stays free for building reports locally.

Does Tableau have a free version for private business data?

Yes, with limits. Tableau Desktop Free Edition is a free desktop app that works with private data, live connections, and unlimited rows, but it can’t publish to Tableau Cloud or Server or share packaged workbooks. Tableau Public is free and hosted, but everything published there is visible to anyone, and it accepts only file and web data sources. Tableau Desktop Public Edition is not licensed for commercial use. Sharing private dashboards with colleagues requires a paid Tableau license on an annual contract.

Which free business intelligence tools allow users to ask natural language questions of data?

Metabase’s open-source edition supports Metabot, its natural language assistant, if you connect your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Bedrock, or Azure key. Grafana Cloud Free includes Grafana Assistant for 3 users with 40M tokens each per month. Databox Free includes its Genie AI analyst with 50 credits a month. Hex Community gets 5 agent credits per editor per month. Data Studio’s new Conversational Analytics is open to all users but works only with BigQuery data agents. Power BI Copilot, Tableau Agent, and Zoho’s Zia assistant require paid plans.

Which BI tools have the best free trial and lowest starting price?

Among trials, Qlik Cloud Analytics offers the longest: 30 days on the Premium tier with no card, extendable once. Lightdash gives 21 days of Cloud Pro, counted from your first dbt compile. Grafana, Hex, Databox, ThoughtSpot, Preset, and Basedash run 14 days without a card. For the lowest published entry price per person, Data Studio Pro starts at $9 per user per project per month and Power BI Pro at $14 per user per month (paid yearly). For a flat account price, Zoho Analytics Basic is $24 per month annually for 2 users, as of October 2026.

Which free BI tools still offer row-level security or a governed semantic layer?

Apache Superset includes row-level security filters in its free open-source edition. Lightdash’s open-source edition supports row-level security through sql_filter and user attributes, and it reads metric definitions from your dbt project, which gives you a governed semantic layer at no license cost. Google Data Studio offers filter by email on free reports, which restricts rows by viewer. Metabase, Preset, and Grafana keep row and permission controls on paid plans. Hex offers row-level security only through signed embedding on Enterprise.

When should companies replace free BI?

Replace a free BI tool when the free plan blocks how the team works rather than what one person can build. Common signs are needing to share dashboards with more people than the plan allows, hitting row or data source caps, needing row-level security or SAML SSO for audits, or spending more engineering time running a self-hosted server than a paid plan would cost. Teams that want plain-English questions answered on live data often switch when AI features turn out to be paid add-ons. Compare paid prices in our BI tool pricing reference before switching.