Atlassian recently announced that it was acquiring Chartio to add a new data analysis and visualization component to the Atlassian platform. Over time, it plans to incorporate Chartio technology across its products, starting with JIRA.
The company sees the acquisition of Chartio as a way to bring data visualization to its platform and take advantage of the data locked in its products.
Chartio reports that 280,000 users have created 10.5 million charts for 540,000 dashboards that used data from over 100,000 data sources. For its part, it believes that it will be better off as part of the Atlassian stable.
Unfortunately, for customers, it's a different story. A notice on the company's website confirms that the product is going away next year.
So, what next? And what are some alternatives companies can look at to find a replacement?
What Now?
Since its humble beginnings in a dorm room in Sydney, Atlassian is now worth over $50 billion. It currently generates revenue of over $1.61 billion per year. Its stable of products include:
- Jira, a collaborative issue tracker,
- Bitbucket, a code repository management platform,
- Confluence, a knowledge management CMS,
- Trello, an organizational app,
- and now also Chartio.
Now, it's evident that Atlassian is a great company and must be doing something right. No one can doubt that.
But as good as it is, many Chartio customers are looking at alternatives, simply because:
- Of the uncertainty of the situation.
- They have no desire to join the Atlassian ecosystem.
- They were already planning to leave Chartio due to price or feature considerations, and this pushed them over the edge.
What Happens To Chartio After Acquisition?
So, what happens when a company like Chartio is acquired by another company?
Well, from our experience, nothing will change immediately. You have to remember that there's always a period after acquisition when a merger needs to complete and settle down before everything changes. As a result, at least for now, it will be business as usual.
But our experience also shows us that, in the future, there will be changes. There's no doubt about it. Just think about it, a company doesn't acquire another company just to keep everything the same.
They acquired the company because they saw value in the product, and they're looking to maximize their investment. Now, this typically happens by the company either by:
- Driving more revenue from the existing customer base.
- Changing the product to make their current product better.
- A combination of the above.
And it happens all the time. Just think of customers of Looker who don't like the changes Google made after the acquisition. Likewise, customers of Tableau are beginning to see Salesforce making changes. And like they always say, history repeats itself, and there's no reason to believe it will be any different in this case.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some alternatives out there.
Top 5 Alternatives to Chartio (Plus 1 Bonus)
Domo
The main advantage of Domo is its focus on social collaboration. Because of this focus on collaboration, you'll get real-time data in an easy-to-use dashboard.
It also features a fully functional and simple-to-use app to view charts from anywhere and send messages throughout the company. And you won't have any difficulty importing your data because many of its integrations come pre-installed. One thing to look out for, though, is security.
As everything eventually gets into their cloud, integrating on-premises data results in steep implementation costs, security concerns, and storage fees. The role and data-level security features can also cost extra because the platform operates on a tiered pricing system.
Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft's Power BI data visualization tool is a tool that you can use to work with data. It integrates with several other types of software and offers you access to both on-site and cloud-based data.
There are some things you should, however, keep in mind. The first is its cost. Sure, its price of $9.99 per month sounds totally reasonable, but at a per-user cost, it adds up, so you'll soon end up paying more than you planned to.
Another consideration is complexity. Here, the programming language required (DAX) can make it too complicated to use for the average user.
Metabase
Metabase is open-source business intelligence that helps you analyze data and gain insights on a unified interface. By giving you the option of self-hosting, you'll use a powerful tool to analyze and visualize your data without being locked into a platform. Apart from the self-hosted option, it also offers various other plans that start at $85 per month.
One thing to consider with Metabase is that it can get complicated, and if you don't have SQL coding knowledge, you'll struggle to find your way around.
Toucan Toco
Toucan Toco is a data visualization platform. It focuses on storytelling to communicate clear and compelling insights from data to users, no matter their data literacy levels or the device they use.
It's also the first data analytics platform that includes a built-in UX that incorporates the best practices of design and storytelling to increase the speed of deployment and ensure consistent results.
However, you should keep in mind that it can be limited in the number of graphs you can use in some instances. Also, its implementation process can become complicated for non-technical users.
Holistics
Holistics is a flexible business intelligence automation and visualization platform that helps you to streamline your data preparation and reporting processes.
It's easy to implement, and it has a reasonable pricing structure that can meet the needs of many companies. However, it could be slightly tricky for users without any SQL knowledge to get comfortable on the platform.
Also, loading and downloading reports can sometimes take longer than expected, especially during peak times.
One More Chartio Alternative
We mentioned a bonus option and to no surprise, it’s our software, DashboardFox. We’re much too shy to just come out and tell you we’re the best. We rather give you some of the main competitors, let you do the evaluation, and come up with that conclusion on your own.
Why DashboardFox Is Not An Alternative To Chartio
There are a few key differences between Chartio and DashboardFox however that may not make us the ideal fit as a replacement (we’ll tell you those right up front).
First, we’re a self-hosted BI platform. Chartio was in the cloud. If you prefer Cloud BI, then DashboardFox might not be the right fit for you. But if you prefer to have your data under your control with no 3rd party access or privacy concerns, keep reading. (Update: We’re coming out with a cloud version of DashboardFox, it may be available by the time you read this)
Second, we’re database-focused from a data source perspective. If you were using Chartio as a way to connect your API-based ecosystem of apps, DashboardFox probably is not a good option. We’re best when connected to a database like MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, Postgres, AWS Redshift or RD2, or any other ODBC compatible data source. (Update: We’re coming out with API integrations so you can quickly connect and report from any SaaS apps API, it may be available by the time you read this)
And one more reason why DashboardFox may not be your Chartio replacement, we’re not a developer tool. We’ve built DashboardFox with a focus on business users. So it’s a codeless report building environment and designed to be really easy to use and maintain. A lot of Chartio users liked to get into the code and write SQL. We try to make you forget that SQL exists.
Why DashboardFox Is An Alternative to Chartio
With the reasons you wouldn’t want to switch behind us, there are quite a few reasons to look at DashboardFox as a great alternative to Chartio.
- It’s affordable (in fact a one-time cost, not a subscription fee)
- It’s self-service BI
- It’s packed with security, scheduling, dashboards, mobile access, and many other features.
The best way to see if DashboardFox could be a replacement is to talk to us. Schedule a live demo or meeting with a product expert on our team (not a sales pitch) and let’s discuss more of your requirements and you can judge for yourself (of course we’re going to want you to do a trial first to kick the tires just to be sure).