Compare
Zeroth and the BI tools you're comparing it with.
Most BI tools give you a place to define metrics and draw charts. Zeroth adds what commerce teams otherwise rebuild themselves (calendars, like-for-like, drivers, forecasts and a trust gate) and runs inside your own cloud.
| As of October 2026 | Zeroth BI | Looker | Power BI | Holistics | Lightdash | Metabase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs Who hosts the service and where your data is processed | Your Google Cloud project (Terraform) | Google-managed service | Microsoft cloud (Fabric) | Vendor cloud | Vendor cloud or self-hosted (open source) | Vendor cloud or self-hosted (open source) |
| Metric definitions in git A semantic layer you review like code | Yes: semantic layer in your repository | Yes: LookML | With Power BI Projects (PBIP/TMDL) | Yes: AML | Yes: dbt YAML | Via serialization (Pro/Enterprise) |
| Dashboards as code Dashboards as files, validated and published through a pull request | Yes: the only way to publish; validated in CI | Optional: LookML dashboards | With Power BI Projects | Yes: canvas dashboards in AML | Yes: content as code via the CLI | Via serialization or remote sync |
| Retail calendars and like-for-like 4-4-5 calendars, week 53, comparisons aligned by period | Built in, one engine for every tile and answer | You model it | You model it | You model it | You model it | You model it |
| Explaining a change Decomposing a delta into effects and drivers | Built in: exact decomposition plus driver search | Varies; analysis or AI features | Decomposition tree and key-influencer visuals | Varies; analysis or AI features | Varies; analysis or AI features | Varies; analysis or AI features |
| AI analyst How answers are grounded | Read-only, governed metrics only; summaries and findings checked against the data | AI assistant (Gemini) | AI assistant (Copilot) | AI assistant | AI agents | AI assistant (Metabot) |
| Pricing basis What you pay for | Licence, plus your own Google Cloud usage | Platform plus users (sales-led) | Per user or capacity | Tiered plans | Per user; free open-source edition | Per user; free open-source edition |
Based on each vendor's public documentation as of October 2026, describing default editions. Products change quickly; if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
Honestly
When another tool is the better choice.
Zeroth is built for multi-market commerce teams on Google Cloud who want their numbers in git. If that isn't you, one of these may fit better.
- Power BI, if you're on the Microsoft stack and your analysts already model in it.
- Looker, if you want a Google-managed service and have LookML expertise in-house.
- Metabase or Lightdash, if you want a free, self-hosted open-source tool and will build comparisons and calendars yourself.
- Holistics, if you want metrics and dashboards as code as a hosted service, without running anything yourself.
See the difference on your own questions.
A walkthrough on a realistic multi-market dataset, then we talk about your stack and what an install would look like.