DataEase: A User-Friendly Open-Source BI Tool for Chinese Users

In today's digital age, data analysis and visualization have become crucial for enterprise decision-making and development. While many BI tools are expensive, open-source BI tools have emerged as a preferred choice for many users. Among the mainstream open-source BI products like Metabase and Superset, which are developed by foreign developers, Chinese users often find them less intuitive to use.

Recently, I discovered a domestic open-source BI tool called DataEase. It supports rich data source connections, allows quick creation of BI dashboards through drag-and-drop, and enables rapid sharing with others. DataEase positions itself as "an open-source data visualization analysis tool for everyone," offering excellent usability and operations that align better with Chinese users' habits.

Since its release in June 2021, DataEase's GitHub star count has steadily grown, now exceeding 11,500 stars.

Today, HelloGitHub will provide a detailed introduction to this product.

FIT2CLOUD

DataEase is developed by FIT2CLOUD. While the company name might be unfamiliar, several of its open-source products are well-known, such as the popular open-source bastion host project JumpServer, the open-source continuous testing platform MeterSphere, and the open-source website builder Halo, which is favored by the anime community. Looking at the total star count of these projects, FIT2CLOUD is undoubtedly a leading open-source software company in China.

Returning to DataEase, the company's official website features a dashboard created using DataEase, showcasing the development dynamics of FIT2CLOUD's open-source projects.

One-Command Deployment

By comparing DataEase with the foreign open-source BI tool Superset, we can see that DataEase has greatly simplified the installation and deployment process. Superset's installation steps involve multiple commands, complex configurations, and numerous steps that are prone to errors. Additionally, users need to manually compile code for localization and install drivers, making the learning curve steep, especially for those without relevant knowledge.

DataEase users only need to execute a single installation command to complete the setup, which can be done online or by downloading an offline installation package. Moreover, all user data generated after installing DataEase is stored in the installation directory. Users only need to keep or back up the files in the installation directory. Even if containers and images are deleted, users can still use their previous data after reinstalling.

Operations Tailored to Chinese Users

Besides installation and deployment, foreign open-source BI tools often overlook Chinese users' habits in their operations, making them unfriendly for domestic users. As a domestic open-source BI tool, DataEase fully considers this aspect in its operations.

Compared to the production processes of Superset and Metabase, DataEase has significantly simplified the steps for creating dashboards, aligning better with Chinese users' production thinking and operational habits. The main advantages are:

DataEase uses drag-and-drop operations for view creation and dashboard layout, making it simple and easy to use, reducing the learning curve.

During view creation, most operation options support default configurations, reducing redundant operations caused by repeated selections.

It supports the functionality of associating datasets, allowing users to configure related settings in the interface instead of writing SQL statements, lowering the learning and usage barriers.

View creation and dashboard creation processes are combined, eliminating the need to create views first and then adjust dashboard layouts.

The overall process for dashboard design is: data source → dataset → dashboard, making the logic clearer. In contrast, the other two foreign software have inconsistent entry points and complex design logic.

Comprehensive Template Market

Considering the commonalities in usage scenarios among domestic users, DataEase also offers a template market (https://dataease.io/templates/). The templates in the market cover multiple domestic usage scenarios and industry domains, fully considering the needs of Chinese users.

In DataEase's operation interface, users can directly call themes from the "template market." After selecting a suitable template and switching datasets, they can create a beautiful dashboard.

Summary

DataEase, as an open-source domestic BI tool, provides users with simple, direct, and powerful data visualization analysis capabilities. It also meets many requirements of Chinese users in terms of usability and user experience.

If you are looking for an open-source BI tool for data visualization work, consider trying DataEase. I believe you will be satisfied.