Sisense Alternative for Warehouse-Native Embedded Analytics

Astrato queries live from your cloud data warehouse to give you analytics that always reflect the truth in your warehouse.

And when your users need to act on what they see they can do it directly from the dashboard. Native writeback. No custom APIs. No third-party plugins. No sprints.

Your warehouse is the
single source of truth.
Your analytics should be too

Sisense’s default ElastiCube model extracts your data from the warehouse and caches it in a proprietary store.
You're left with refresh schedules, stale dashboards, and a separate data layer that engineering has to build and maintain.

Astrato runs live queries directly against your warehouse. No extract layer. No data duplication. No drift.

Governance and row-level security stay in the warehouse — defined once, respected everywhere.
Your semantic layer powers analytics directly. No translation layer, no model to maintain alongside your warehouse.
Performance stays predictable on large datasets — Astrato pushes computation down to your warehouse rather than pulling data out of it.
Always current — when data changes in the warehouse, dashboards reflect it immediately.

Analytics that feel
like your product —
‍not a tool bolted on

Full white-labelling — zero Astrato branding. Your product, your identity.
Pixel-perfect layouts — control fonts, colours, spacing, and component styling without writing code.
Flexible embedding granularity — embed a single chart, a visual cluster, or a full dashboard wherever it fits in your UI.
Self-service for end users — filters, drill-downs, and AI exploration built in, so your customers stay in your product longer.
Scheduled reports — automated PDF, Excel, and PowerPoint delivery, fully branded, no manual effort.

Sisense: Embedding requires significant dev effort

Sisense’s Compose SDK is code-first — React, Angular, or Vue. Achieving true pixel-perfect customisation typically requires a frontend developer team. iFrame embedding is simpler but offers limited design control.

Dashboards your team can act on
— not just look at

Most BI tools stop at the chart. Astrato writeback closes the loop: users can update records, adjust forecasts, approve workflows, and enter data directly from the dashboard — and those changes land immediately in the warehouse, visible to every system connected to it.

Adjust forecasts — sales teams update pipeline values inline, without leaving their analytics view.
Approve budgets — finance teams approve or flag line items directly in a dashboard, with full audit trail.
Manage incidents — operations teams update status, assign ownership, and log notes from within the dashboard.
Qualify leads — marketing and sales teams tag, qualify, or update CRM fields without switching tools.
Enter operational data — any team that needs to add context, corrections, or decisions to data, without a separate form or app.

Sisense: No native writeback

Sisense has no native writeback. Options are a DIY REST API pattern (BloX) or paid third-party marketplace plugins — neither supported by Sisense directly.

AI that knows what
your data actually means

Astrato's AI is grounded in our semantic layer. Metric definitions live in the semantic layer and AI uses them to generate accurate, governed insights every time.

No hallucinations — AI is anchored to governed metrics, not raw column names.
Consistent answers — "active users" means the same thing everywhere, every time.
Auto-narrative — charts explain themselves in plain language.
LLM flexibility — Snowflake Cortex, Google Gemini, OpenAI, or bring your own.

How Sisense and Astrato compare

Capability	Sisense	Astrato
Live queries	Extract-based by default; live-query models available with limitations	✓ Warehouse-native. No extract layer, no data copy, no refresh schedule
Writeback	No native feature — DIY via BloX (custom REST API) or paid third-party plugins	✓ Native, no-code writeback with in-platform authorisation, writes directly to warehouse
AI analytics	Sisense Intelligence (May 2025): NL queries, auto-narrative, BYO LLM at Grow tier	✓ AI powered by warehouse-native semantic layer — governed, contextually accurate answers
Embedding options	Compose SDK (code-first: React/Angular/Vue), Sisense.JS, iFrame	✓ No-code drag-and-drop, iFrame, and API — no SDK required for standard scenarios
White-labelling	Available in higher-tier plans	✓ Pixel-perfect white-label — colours, fonts, layouts, zero Astrato branding
Semantic layer	ElastiCube model — proprietary, outside the warehouse	✓ Warehouse-native, reusable everywhere, powers AI
Governance	Parallel governance in ElastiCube; Live Models can inherit warehouse RBAC with limitations	✓ Governance stays in the warehouse — no duplication, no drift
Scheduled reports	Available from Grow tier — automated PDF/email reports	✓ Automated branded reports: PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, email scheduled delivery

Loved by Innovators

Astrato is a game changer. It integrated directly into our Data Cloud. Security and data privacy are critical for our work with behavioral health, addiction, and recovery support providers. Astrato allows us to maintain our high security in the Snowflake Data Cloud while opening more insights to more levels of care. Astrato is significantly faster with dashboards loading almost instantly.

Melissa Pluke

Co-Founder

Previously used Qlik Sense

Before, we had a separate analytics page, and nobody used it. Now, every customer at least checks the analytics, and for some, it’s the main thing they care about

Claudio Paolicelli

CTO

Self-hosted

Astrato acts as the shop window for everything happening in Snowflake, while all computation and governance remain in code within our data warehouse. That means anyone can access insights without relying on complex BI tools.

Chanade Hemming

Head of Data Products

Previoulsy used Tableau

Astrato is helping us win new customers as a result (of our Self-service embedded dashboard in Astrato), and we are on target to double the number of units (users) this year.

Beau Dobbs

Director of Business Intelligence & Operations

Previously used Tableau

Our customers are already thrilled by the improvement in user experience we have seen from switching to Astrato, which is enabling their non-technical users to self-serve for the insights they need to make informed decisions and be far more productive. This is helping us win and retain more customers.

Zachary Paz

Chief Operating Officer & EVP, Product

Evaluated Sigma, Thoughtspot & Qlik

Astrato offers a 50-75% cost saving over Qlik, with 25-50% faster development, seamless self-service analytics, and easy adoption which enables quick, customizable insights and actions.

Jeff Morrison

Chief of Analytics & Data Management

Previously used Qlik Sense & QlikView

Given Astrato is 100% cloud-native live-query, tightly integrated with the speed and scalability of Snowflake, we can now rapidly process a customer's data and build streamlined actionable analytics, in just hours/days compared to weeks/months previously. We have been able to automate almost everything, which just wasn't possible with PowerBI and our skill sets.

David Beto

Co-Founder & CEO

Previously used Power BI