Apache Superset
Your Guide To Affordable BI Solutions
Apache Superset - A nuisance for some, a blessing for some.
In the age of data, a business cannot afford to be left out and not harness its data for actionable insights. Business intelligence is the practice of analyzing data to identify key trends that provide actionable insights for improving business goals and hitting targets.
In my last post, ‘Why BI Is More About Brains Than Buttons,’ I mentioned that a BI engineer/analyst has to be more focused on the business logic and understanding than the tools required. If you have the skill but don’t understand the business you’re as useless as the next person. A BI professional has to combine business and skill to provide fruitful results.
Today, I bring you a tool valuable for many local business owners and aspiring data professionals. Apache Superset.
What Is Apache Superset?
Apache Superset is an open-source BI tool by Apache. It’s the perfect tool for aspiring data professionals and local business owners. Why?
It is an open-source tool.
Its paid version is only $20-$25 per user per month with an additional $10 for viewers only. (Preset.io)
It depicts the growing trend of open-source BI solutions in 2025 and beyond and reflects a shift towards affordability as well as flexibility. Superset allows local business owners with little to no budget to harness BI.
Should Aspiring BI Professionals Use It?
Superset is a great tool for someone new to the field of BI. Its open-source option makes it the perfect tool to practice analytical thinking and practice dashboard creation without a sword hanging over their heads for free trials and expenses.
I’m going to be listing down a few benefits of the tool for beginners.
Creating a dashboard is very beginner-friendly.
Easy Modification Of Chart Types.
Modifying Datasets through SQL Lab is pretty easy
You can see in the picture above that it is pretty easy to create charts and similarly modify them. All you need to do is drag and drop your columns and click on the chart type to select what you need.
It’s a very easy interface for beginners and can really help them understand what BI is about.
Note: If you stumble across this tool, please learn it and practice your analytical thinking on it, and then move on to another tool like Power BI or Tableau.
Local Business Owners, Listen Up!
I know you’ve got a low budget, and I know you’ve got fewer resources but Apache Superset is the best thing you can do for your business. It will provide you with trends and insights from places you can’t even imagine.
Look, I know you’re scared of it, but I’ll help you look at the bright side.
Here’s a dashboard I made on Superset for restaurant sales from a sample dataset.
I am so proud of what I just made. I had the dashboard done in under 15 minutes but the customization and designing took time (about an hour or so). That is the issue with Superset, you have to edit the CSS and JSON to customize the colors and design of the dashboard.
Anyways, the dashboard above shows KPIs for a restaurant, a perfect example for local businesses. The cost of creating the dashboard was zero which is again perfect for local business owners. The only cost you will have to bear is the charges of the BI engineer/analyst you hire to do the dirty work and the cost of the paid tool if you need it.
You can see in the dashboard above that Superset is perfectly capable of taking your business’s data and transforming it into beautiful insights. Here’s how the KPIs I made can help a restaurant:
Total Revenue: You can figure out where your business stands in terms of earnings. It is a pretty common KPI that can be figured out pretty easily with a calculator but you can always make mistakes while calculating. However, SQL won’t. The choice is yours.
Revenue By Category: You can see which cuisine is more profitable to your business and how you can capitalize on this insight. In this case, Italian cuisine takes the lead.
Top 10 Best-Selling Items: It shows the best-selling item (in this case hamburgers). Combine this insight with the revenue by category and boom! You’ll get immense profits.
Top 10 Best-Performing Days: This KPI clearly shows that the most profitable day was the 1st Of February. Why? That’s for you to figure out. Was it a public holiday? Was there a national event? Was there some sort of celebration?
These KPIs and the dashboard show that you can do wonders with Superset and create a budget-friendly BI solution solely focused on improving your business revenue and process.
Here’s What We Learnt
Superset is a wonderful tool for beginners in BI and local business owners. It helps you improve your business without having to deal with price tags at all.
If you would like help setting up Superset for your business or you need me to run your BI solutions, you can always contact me, or you can contact the firm I work at Addo.ai (Yes, I care about the firm I work at as well because if not for the firm, I wouldn’t even know what BI is, let alone Superset). We will always be there to help you figure out how to solve your business problems in the best way possible.
Addo.ai - Linkedin
For all my data professionals,
Start Querying Today!
I am an Associate BI Engineer working at a Data And AI Firm. I’m trying to help newbies in Data land their first data job and impact as many fellow data analysts as I can. Here’s my contact info:
ajmal7809@gmail.com
bideveloper_ (Discord)