Elementary vs Metaplane
Verdict: Elementary scores 9.2/10 against 9.2/10 for Metaplane on our data score for data monitoring testing tools.
Both have a free plan.
Elementary leads on 1 check and Metaplane on 0; 7 are even, out of 8 checks (yes/no, price and seats) where we have data for both.
Choose Elementary for analytics engineering teams that build with dbt. Choose Metaplane for small and mid-size analytics teams on Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift or Databricks that want a free starting tier.
Scoreboard: 8 checks
| Check | Elementary | Metaplane |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Even | Even |
| Free trial | Leads | |
| Smaller seat minimum | Even | Even |
| ML anomaly detection | Even | Even |
| Freshness and volume checks | Even | Even |
| Alerts (email, Slack or Teams) | Even | Even |
| Data lineage | Even | Even |
| Custom rule checks | Even | Even |
| Total | 1 | 0 |
At a glance
| Elementary | Metaplane | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 9.2/10 (#3) | 9.2/10 (#4) |
| Best for | Analytics engineering teams that build with dbt | Small and mid-size analytics teams on Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift or Databricks that want a free starting tier |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Paid from (annual) | See vendor | See vendor |
| Paid from (monthly) | — | — |
| Free trial | 30-day free trial of Elementary Cloud | — |
| Minimum seats | 1 | 1 |
| Platforms | Cloud (SaaS), Self-hosted (OSS) | Cloud (SaaS) |
Features
| Tool | Score | ML anomaly detection | Freshness and volume checks | Alerts (email, Slack or Teams) | Data lineage | Custom rule checks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary | 9.2/10 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Metaplane | 9.2/10 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pros and cons
Elementary
Pros- Open-source dbt package and CLI (Apache-2.0) can be self-hosted at no cost
- Tests are configured in the dbt project as code, alongside existing dbt tests
- 30-day cloud trial with no limits on seats, environments or monitored tables
- Elementary states it is SOC 2 Type II certified and the cloud reads metadata only
- Mainly useful for teams already using dbt
- Cloud prices are not published ('Talk to sales')
- Pricing page has inconsistencies (trial references an 'Essentials' plan that is not listed)
- AI agents are billed separately with credits
Metaplane
Pros- Free forever plan covering 10 monitored tables, no credit card
- Alerts to Slack, email and Microsoft Teams on every plan; PagerDuty from Pro
- Column-level lineage across warehouses and BI tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Sigma and others)
- States SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA compliance
- Pro is 'usage-based' per monitored table but no unit price is published
- Custom SQL monitors are capped (3 on Free, 5 on Pro, 10 on Enterprise)
- Pricing page cards and comparison table disagree on user limits
- Data CI/CD and warehouse spend monitoring are paid add-ons
Frequently asked questions
How do Elementary and Metaplane compare on features and price?
Elementary leads on 1 check and Metaplane on 0; 7 are even, out of 8 checks (yes/no, price and seats) where we have data for both.
Is Elementary better than Metaplane?
Elementary scores 9.2/10 against 9.2/10 for Metaplane on our data score for data monitoring testing tools. Elementary is best for analytics engineering teams that build with dbt; Metaplane is best for small and mid-size analytics teams on Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift or Databricks that want a free starting tier.
Which is cheaper, Elementary or Metaplane?
Check each vendor's pricing page; one of them does not publish an entry price.
Do Elementary and Metaplane have free plans?
Elementary: yes. Metaplane: yes.
See the full Data Monitoring Testing Tools ranking for other options.
Sources
- Elementary: official pricing page · Elementary pricing page · Elementary docs: OSS introduction · Elementary docs: volume_anomalies and freshness_anomalies tests · Elementary GitHub repository
- Metaplane: official pricing page · Metaplane pricing page · Metaplane home page · Datadog press release on Metaplane acquisition