What is Shaper used for?

Shaper, from Taleshape, is a SQL-first tool for building dashboards, reports and embedded analytics on DuckDB, self-hosted or via managed hosting. It is a good fit for building customer-facing analytics in a SaaS product, sending scheduled data reports and creating SQL-driven internal dashboards.

Is Shaper open source?

Yes. Shaper is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at taleshape-com/shaper and is written mainly in Go.

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

Can I self-host Shaper?

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

What is Shaper an alternative to?

Shaper is an open-source alternative to Tableau, Hex, Power BI and Sisense. Other open-source alternatives to Tableau include Metabase, Superset and Lightdash.

Is Shaper actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Shaper was on 29 September 2026, and the latest release is v0.24.12, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 1.3k stars on GitHub.

Shaper: open-source alternative to Tableau, Hex, Power BI

About Shaper

Shaper is an open-source tool for building data dashboards, reports and customer-facing analytics by writing SQL. It is developed by Taleshape and powered by DuckDB, and it aims to make analytics simple for developers: you write queries, and Shaper turns them into charts and shareable pages.

The data visualization side is SQL-first and designed to work with AI, with a Git-based workflow and the ability to query across data sources. Embedded analytics features include white-labeling and custom styles, row-level security through JWT tokens, and embedding via JavaScript and React SDKs without an iframe. Automated reporting can generate PDF, PNG, CSV and Excel files, send scheduled alerts and reports, and share password-protected links.

Shaper is written in Go and licensed under MPL-2.0. You can try it with a single Docker command or follow the deployment guide for production. Taleshape also offers managed hosting, in its own cloud or in your infrastructure, plus hands-on support, and explains the shared-responsibility model between self-hosting and managed service. It suits product teams adding analytics to their apps.

Key features

Dashboards written entirely in SQL
Powered by DuckDB
Embedding through JS and React SDKs
Row-level security with JWT tokens
PDF, PNG, CSV, and Excel report generation
Scheduled alerts and shareable links

Good fit for

→Building customer-facing analytics in a SaaS product
→Sending scheduled data reports
→Creating SQL-driven internal dashboards

Built with: Go
Tags: dashboards; sql; duckdb; embedded-analytics; reporting; go; self-hosted; analytics; data-visualization

Shaper: questions and answers

What is Shaper used for?: Shaper, from Taleshape, is a SQL-first tool for building dashboards, reports and embedded analytics on DuckDB, self-hosted or via managed hosting. It is a good fit for building customer-facing analytics in a SaaS product, sending scheduled data reports and creating SQL-driven internal dashboards.
Is Shaper open source?: Yes. Shaper is open source under the MPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at taleshape-com/shaper and is written mainly in Go.
Is Shaper free?: Yes. Shaper is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Shaper?: Yes. Shaper can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Shaper an alternative to?: Shaper is an open-source alternative to Tableau, Hex, Power BI and Sisense. Other open-source alternatives to Tableau include Metabase, Superset and Lightdash.
Is Shaper actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Shaper was on 29 September 2026, and the latest release is v0.24.12, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 1.3k stars on GitHub.