Best 7 Free Dashboard Tools in 2023 [Guide]

A range of free dashboard tools available to visualize metrics and key performance indicators include Datapad, Grafana, Databox, Dasheroo, FineReport, Metabase, Google Data Studio, Matomo, Tableau, and Inetsoft. This guide provides an in-depth review of these tools, highlighting why they’re the best in the market.

What is a Dashboarding Tool?

A dashboarding tool is a simplified data management software that collects, monitors, and displays complex data via interactive and customizable dashboards and reports. These tools help you monitor and visualize your business health, and provide you with data-driven insights.

In today’s world, where every enterprise is dealing with a large amount of data, dashboarding tools are essential to easily analyze and monitor data from various sources. They can present data in an easy-to-understand format, thereby helping decision-makers make better data-driven decisions in a timely manner.

If you want to learn more about the best free dashboard software, you can either read the entire article or watch the video provided below.

Things to Consider before selecting Dashboard Tool

1. Easy to Setup

When choosing a dashboard tool, it’s important to consider how easy it is to set up. A tool that’s difficult to set up won’t be very useful. Look for a tool that lets you set up dashboards quickly and easily. Some tools might claim to have an easy setup, but it’s important to choose the one that works best for you. A good tip is to check if the tool provides free setup resources such as guides, tutorial videos, and customer support.

2. Can you access your dashboards quickly?

Some dashboard tools may slow down your access to your dashboard. It can be due to heavy databases or slow loading time. Therefore, it’s important to choose a tool that offers instant data visualization capabilities. In business, time is valuable, so your dashboard should be easily accessible with just a click.

3. Can you use your dashboard tool on the go?

While most dashboard tools require you to be at your desktop to access them, it’s not always possible to be there. To avoid any last-minute panic, make sure your dashboard tool allows you to access your dashboards from anywhere. Look for a free dashboard tool that has a mobile app or mobile-optimized dashboards.

4 Difficulty for Your Whole Team To Use the Tool?

When choosing a dashboarding tool, it’s important to think about whether your whole team can use it easily. Not everyone has the same level of knowledge or experience, so it’s important to choose a tool that is easy for everyone to learn. This will help your team collaborate better and get things done faster. Look for a tool with a low learning curve, so your team can get started quickly and with minimal training.

5. Pricing

Many dashboarding tools have complex pricing policies, which can be challenging to understand. Some may offer a free plan with limited features, while others might have a freemium version that is free for a limited time.

At Datapad, we believe in keeping things simple. Our tool is completely free without any restrictions.

However, for other tools, we recommend comparing them carefully. And remember, a tool that offers a freemium version is different from a completely free tool.

Best free Dashboard Software Tools

1. DataPad

Looking for the best free dashboard software to create stunning dashboards? Look no further than Datapad! It’s the easiest dashboard software to use on the market and it helps progressive business owners collect, monitor, analyze, and manage crucial business data from their web and phone.

Best For ?

Datapad is perfect for small to medium-sized enterprises and solopreneurs who want to manage their business KPIs quickly and easily from anywhere.

What sets Datapad apart from other free dashboard tools? It’s highly customizable! You can easily change the look and feel of every section on your dashboard. Our tool has an extensive library of pre-built charts, tables, graphs, and more. And the best part? You can perform all these customizations from the mobile app – no need to be tied to your PC!

Features

• Easily add team members and delegate tasks to them
• Monitor and track the performance of each team member
• Receive real-time alerts on your dashboard for team activities
• Collaborate with your team by commenting under a KPI

2. Grafana

Grafana is a solution that lets businesses process, query, and show data through interactive visualizations. It’s an open-source analytics and dashboarding tool that can create unified dashboards with data from various sources, promoting a data-driven culture.

Best For?

Grafana has millions of business users, ranging from small startups to large companies such as eBay, PayPal, Intel, and more. It’s an excellent data visualization tool for anyone who wants to create interactive dashboards.

Features:

• Offers pre-built data visualization options such as histograms, heatmaps, graphs, and geo-maps for fast and flexible data visualization.
• Has 40+ data source plugins and APIs for importing data from popular platforms like Google Analytics, Github, etc.
• Allows you to edit, combine, and perform calculations across multiple queries from different data sources.
• Can set up alerts to easily manage and get alerts from a centralized system.
• Provides a panel editor for quickly configuring, customizing, and visualizing all dashboards with a consistent user interface.

3. Databox

Databox is a business analytics dashboard that allows you to track business performance from anywhere by connecting data from any tool.

Over 20,000 businesses use Databox to visualize their data and make data-driven decisions.

Best For?

Databox is ideal for data-driven decision-makers, marketers, analysts, and CEOs. It’s a versatile platform suitable for small to large businesses.

Features

• Connect your data easily via 60+ one-click integrations or via SQL database, Google Sheets, APIs, or Zapier
• Access to 200+ pre-built dashboards and report templates created by professionals for different departments
• Use the drag-and-drop interface builder to create custom metrics by combining data from multiple sources
• Design intuitive dashboards without coding or design skills
• Set up alerts for specific metrics that meet or exceed thresholds, and schedule performance reports via email, Slack, and other channels.

4. Dasheroo

Dasheroo is a BI and analytics platform that offers cloud-based dashboards and visualizations for managing and making sense of business data.

Best For?

Dasheroo caters to businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.

Features

• Collaborate in real-time within the platform with the ability to comment and discuss to enhance team productivity
• Stay informed with instant group notifications for significant metric changes
• Merge data from different sources to create customized metrics and uncover hidden correlations and trends
• Schedule and send recurring emails to share dashboards with teams and export dashboards in PDF or PNG formats
• Easily import data from various sources using JSON and Push API Webhooks.

5. FineReport

FineReport is a Java-based business intelligence software that facilitates data integration, management, and visualization across your organization. It is designed for a wide range of users, including product managers, owners, CTOs, SI’s, and ISVs in healthcare, manufacturing, finance & banking, real estate, and IT sectors.

Best for?

FineReport is a leading BI tool in China that caters to a wide range of professionals, including SI’s and ISVs, product managers, CTOs, and those in the healthcare, manufacturing, finance & banking, real estate, and IT sectors. Additionally, it’s a popular choice among individual marketers because it offers free personal use.

Features of FineReport

FineReport offers an easy-to-use designer with drag-and-drop functionality, making it simple to create interactive reports in just a few minutes.
It also integrates seamlessly with mainstream databases, offering one-click connectivity through JDBC.
The platform also includes a stream-to-TV feature, allowing users to track KPIs on large screens and TV dashboards effortlessly. With over 19 categories and 50+ pre-built HTML5 charts, FineReport offers dynamic and visually appealing data visualization options, including 3D and other cool effects.

it has a dedicated mobile app that utilizes ReactNative technology for a seamless mobile dashboarding experience.

6. Metabase

Metabase is a tool for BI (Business Intelligence) and data visualization, available as open-source software. It helps you to create compelling stories from your data by presenting it in interactive dashboards that are easy to understand for business owners and stakeholders. This enables them to make data-driven decisions more effectively.

Best for?

Metabase is suitable for small teams, growing businesses, and large enterprises. If you only need the free plan, it’s ideal for small teams and startups.


Features of FineReport

Metabase’s features include a user-friendly interface and an embedded visual query builder for advanced users. It provides over 20+ integrated data sources and 15+ built-in visualizations, allowing you to create beautiful live charts and dashboards easily. You can share your dashboards through smart links or schedule automated reports via email or Slack for timely alerts. Additionally, you can embed your dashboards in web pages, presentations, and more. With role-based management, you can control who can view the dashboards and when.

7. Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is a tool that allows you to collect and transform raw data from various sources into interactive and visually appealing reports and dashboards. These dashboards are fully customizable and can be easily shared with your teams and stakeholders.

Best For ?

Google Data Studio is suitable for anyone who wants to make better use of their data without incurring any costs or risking data mishandling.

Features 

• Some of the features of Google Data Studio include an extensive gallery of pre-built reports and dashboard templates, making it easy to create stunning data visuals quickly.
  
• It provides over 800+ data sources and 650 connectors to collect or import data from multiple sources with a click. 
• You can choose from an array of visualization tools, such as Gantt chart, Gauge, and Waterfall, or create custom visualization. 
• You can easily share reports and dashboards with individuals or teams, collaborate in real time, and embed reports on any web page with a simple code.