# Apache Superset **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/apache-superset **Vertical:** Modern Data Stack & Analytics Engineering **Subcategory:** Open-Source Business Intelligence **Tier:** Challenger **Website:** superset.apache.org **Last Updated:** 2026-04-22 ## Summary Apache Foundation open-source BI and data visualization platform; widely deployed by enterprises and cloud providers as a self-hosted analytics layer. ## Company Overview Apache Superset is an open-source business intelligence and data visualization platform originally created at Airbnb in 2015 by Maxime Beauchemin and donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 2017, where it graduated as a top-level Apache project in 2021. Superset was built to provide Airbnb's data analysts with a self-service SQL query environment and interactive dashboard builder connected directly to their data infrastructure. Its open-source, self-hosted nature made it attractive to organizations that needed a powerful BI tool without the per-seat licensing costs of commercial alternatives like Tableau or Looker.\n\nApache Superset has become one of the most widely deployed open-source BI platforms globally, with contributions from hundreds of developers and production deployments at companies including Airbnb, Lyft, Twitter (now X), Dropbox, and many others. Preset, a company founded by Maxime Beauchemin, provides a managed cloud version of Superset with enterprise support, making it accessible to organizations that want Superset's capabilities without running their own infrastructure. The platform's active community continuously adds new chart types, database connectors, and features, keeping it competitive with commercial offerings.\n\nSuperset's feature set includes a SQL Lab for ad hoc query writing and exploration, a drag-and-drop dashboard builder with more than 40 chart types, semantic layer support via datasets with metrics and dimensions, and role-based access control for governing who can access which data and dashboards. It connects to more than 40 databases and query engines including Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, ClickHouse, Druid, Presto, Trino, and standard SQL databases, making it one of the most broadly compatible BI tools available. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who maintains Apache Superset and who should use it? Apache Superset is maintained by the open-source community under the Apache Software Foundation, with significant contributions from Preset (founded by Superset's creator), Airbnb, and many other organizations. It is best suited for organizations with data engineering resources to deploy and maintain a self-hosted BI platform, teams that need a permissively licensed open-source tool for cost or compliance reasons, and developers building custom analytics workflows on top of a flexible open-source foundation. ### What is Preset and how does it relate to Apache Superset? Preset is a commercial company founded by Maxime Beauchemin, the original creator of Apache Superset, that provides a fully managed cloud version of Superset with enterprise features, support, and SLAs. Organizations that want Superset's capabilities without the operational burden of self-hosting can use Preset as a managed service while retaining the benefit of the open-source foundation and avoiding proprietary lock-in. ### What databases and query engines does Apache Superset support? Superset supports more than 40 databases and query engines through its SQLAlchemy-based connection layer, including Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Databricks, ClickHouse, Apache Druid, Presto, Trino, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and many others. This broad database support, combined with its open-source license, makes Superset one of the most versatile BI platforms for diverse data infrastructure environments. ### Who maintains Apache Superset and how is it licensed? Apache Superset is an open-source project maintained by the Apache Software Foundation with contributions from a large community including Airbnb, where it originated. It is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, allowing free use, modification, and distribution including for commercial purposes. ### What databases and data sources can Apache Superset connect to? Apache Superset connects to virtually any database with a SQLAlchemy-compatible driver, including Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Presto, Trino, ClickHouse, DuckDB, and dozens more, making it broadly compatible with the modern data stack. ### Does Apache Superset require SQL knowledge to use? Apache Superset supports both a no-code chart builder for business users who explore data through a visual interface and a full SQL editor for analysts who prefer to write custom queries, making it usable across teams with varying technical expertise. ### What is Preset and how does it relate to Apache Superset? Preset is a managed cloud service built on Apache Superset, founded by Superset's original creator Maxime Beauchemin, offering a hosted, enterprise-ready version with managed infrastructure, SSO, access controls, and enterprise support for organizations that want Superset capabilities without self-hosting. ### How does Apache Superset handle role-based access control? Superset provides a granular permission system where administrators can define roles that control access to specific databases, datasets, dashboards, and charts, allowing organizations to implement row-level security and restrict sensitive data to authorized users. ## Tags data-warehouse, analytics, saas, b2b, developer-tools, open-source, platform, cloud-native, enterprise, global --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-22.*