Evidence Has a Free BI Tool as Code — Here's How to Use It

Tableau costs $70/month/user. Looker needs Google Cloud. Evidence generates beautiful data dashboards from SQL and Markdown — deploy as a static site for free.

What Is Evidence?

Evidence is a business intelligence tool that generates polished reports from SQL queries and Markdown. Write SQL, add charts, deploy as a static site.

Quick Start

npx degit evidence-dev/template my-report
cd my-report && npm install && npm run dev

Write Reports in Markdown + SQL

# Sales Dashboard

```

sql monthly_revenue
SELECT 
  date_trunc('month', created_at) as month,
  SUM(amount) as revenue,
  COUNT(*) as orders
FROM orders
WHERE created_at >= '2024-01-01'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1


```

Revenue has been growing steadily. Last month we hit **{fmt(monthly_revenue[monthly_revenue.length-1].revenue, '$#,##0')}**.

<LineChart 
  data={monthly_revenue} 
  x=month 
  y=revenue 
  title="Monthly Revenue"
/>

<BigValue 
  data={monthly_revenue} 
  value=revenue 
  title="Latest Revenue"
  fmt='$#,##0'
/>
```

`

## Available Charts

- LineChart, BarChart, AreaChart
- ScatterPlot, BubbleChart, Histogram
- Heatmap, Funnel, Sankey
- DataTable with sorting and search
- BigValue, Delta (KPI cards)
- Maps (US, World)

## Connect Any Database

```yaml
# sources/mydb/connection.yaml
type: postgres
host: localhost
port: 5432
database: analytics
user: readonly
password: ${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}
```

Supports: PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, DuckDB, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, and more.

## Why Evidence

| Feature | Evidence | Tableau | Metabase |
|---------|----------|---------|----------|
| Cost | Free | $70/user/mo | Free (self-host) |
| Code-based | Yes (Markdown) | No (GUI) | No (GUI) |
| Version control | Git | No | Limited |
| Deploy | Static site | Server | Server |
| Customization | Full (code) | Themes | Limited |

## Get Started

- [Documentation](https://docs.evidence.dev/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/evidence-dev/evidence) — 4K+ stars

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**Visualizing scraped data?** My [Apify scrapers](https://apify.com/alexey_scraper) export to any database Evidence supports. Custom solutions: [e-mail]