What is Briefer used for?

Briefer is an open-source, Notion-like tool for building notebooks and dashboards with Python, SQL and native visualizations, with scheduling and real-time collaboration. It is a good fit for shared analytics dashboards for technical and non-technical users, and scheduled reporting notebooks.

Is Briefer open source?

Yes. Briefer is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at briefercloud/briefer and is written mainly in TypeScript.

Yes. Briefer is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Briefer?

Yes. Briefer can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Briefer an alternative to?

Briefer is an open-source alternative to Hex, Sigma, Mode and Observable. Other open-source alternatives to Hex include Apache Zeppelin, Evidence and Redash.

Is Briefer actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Briefer was on 7 August 2025. The project has 4.3k stars on GitHub.

Briefer: open-source alternative to Hex, Sigma, Mode

About Briefer

Briefer combines notebooks and dashboards in a single product, aimed at technical users who need the flexibility of code for analysis while making results easy for non-technical colleagues to view and interact with. It is described by its creators as similar to Notion, but built for code notebooks and dashboards rather than general documents.

Users can create notebooks and dashboards combining Markdown, Python, SQL and native visualizations, build interactive data apps with inputs, dropdowns and date pickers, generate code and queries with an AI that understands the connected database schema, schedule notebooks and dashboards to refresh periodically, and create write-back pipelines for testing changes against data. It also supports real-time multiplayer editing so multiple people can work on the same notebook or dashboard together.

The README states that Briefer has been acquired by Resend, with further updates referenced in the project's blog. It can be run locally by installing it with pip, which requires Docker, or used through a hosted cloud version; it is released under the AGPL-3.0 license and lists PostgreSQL among its supported data sources.

Key features

Notebooks combining Python, SQL and Markdown
Native dashboard visualizations
AI-assisted code and query generation
Scheduled notebook and dashboard runs
Real-time multiplayer editing
Interactive data apps with inputs and dropdowns

Good fit for

→Shared analytics dashboards for technical and non-technical users
→Scheduled reporting notebooks

Built with: TypeScript; PostgreSQL
Tags: notebooks; dashboards; business-intelligence; data-visualization; self-hosted; sql; python

Briefer: questions and answers

What is Briefer used for?: Briefer is an open-source, Notion-like tool for building notebooks and dashboards with Python, SQL and native visualizations, with scheduling and real-time collaboration. It is a good fit for shared analytics dashboards for technical and non-technical users, and scheduled reporting notebooks.
Is Briefer open source?: Yes. Briefer is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at briefercloud/briefer and is written mainly in TypeScript.
Is Briefer free?: Yes. Briefer is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Briefer?: Yes. Briefer can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Briefer an alternative to?: Briefer is an open-source alternative to Hex, Sigma, Mode and Observable. Other open-source alternatives to Hex include Apache Zeppelin, Evidence and Redash.
Is Briefer actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Briefer was on 7 August 2025. The project has 4.3k stars on GitHub.