Evidence vs Superset
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted web analytics options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Evidence | Superset |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 87 · Excellent | 99 · Excellent |
| Category | Web Analytics | Web Analytics |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,958 | ★ 74,902 |
| First released | 2021 | None |
| Replaces | Tableau, Looker | Tableau, Power BI |
What are Evidence and Superset?
Evidence
Evidence is a code-driven business intelligence framework where reports are written in Markdown with embedded SQL. It builds fast static analytics sites that can be self-hosted.
- Markdown plus SQL reports
- Static site output
- Version-controlled BI
- Fast builds
Superset
Apache Superset is a data exploration and visualization platform with a SQL IDE, dozens of chart types and dashboard sharing. It targets analytics teams wanting a self-hosted BI tool. It is deployed via Docker Compose or Helm with a metadata database.
- SQL Lab query IDE
- Dozens of chart types
- Dashboard sharing and permissions
- Connects to most SQL databases
Evidence vs Superset: key differences
Evidence is written in TypeScript, while Superset is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Evidence versus Apache-2.0 for Superset. Superset has the considerably larger community, at 74,902 GitHub stars versus 6,958. Evidence lists first-class Docker deployment; Superset does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Evidence if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 7k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Choose Superset if…
- Rich visualization options
- Powerful SQL exploration
- Scales to large teams
Watch out for
- Setup can be involved
- Needs metadata database
- Resource heavy
Frequently asked questions
Is Evidence or Superset better?
Neither is universally better. Superset has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Evidence and Superset free and open-source?
Yes. Evidence is licensed under MIT and Superset under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Evidence and Superset with Docker?
Evidence: yes. Superset: check the project docs for container support.