I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Based Access Control feature in the product. I assess this feature as good; they have permissions which are in more plain English, but there is a little bit of convenience missed out because if I have to create a super user apart from admin, I need to add all the permissions manually.
Apache Superset has good features for supporting multidimensional analysis, but I need more ability to customize. This depends on different tools used for different customers or users; Superset is good for users with limited experience as for technical people and analysts. It's a good tool, but sometimes you need more customization. Building custom graphs was hard compared to Grafana, which is much easier. Generally speaking, it's a different level of customization, so if you need super customization, you might consider using other tools. But for starting out, it's a good tool. One thing I would add is folders because having 1,000 queries makes it horrible to understand which query was written and for which dashboard, with graphs. I would want to see more features such as filters and folders, and improvements in how to organize queries and dashboards overall. I had issues when trying to export and import dashboards; I could not do it on the first attempt. I spent a whole day trying to fix it because I built the dashboard on one laptop, exported it from the web version, and then struggled to import it on another laptop. I believe this process is critical and fixable, but in my case, I could not do it. This led us to consider other tools for continuing our work. It would be great to improve the reliability of the import and export features. For our tasks, Apache Superset's integration with authentication protocols and role-based access control was sufficient, but it would be great if we could create teams and organizations. It actually depends on the size of the company; for small companies, I think it's more than enough. For enterprise or large companies, I would say it may need more advanced roles and organization features.
Apache Superset needs more rich charting capabilities. Second, it could benefit from more real-time capabilities, such as real-time streams over WebSockets. Also, permissions-wise, it should be less confusing because the permissions are a bit misleading. I don't know how to ensure that particular categories or roles have specific permissions while others don't. I understand that there has to be some balance between flexibility and simplicity, but I think it's skewed too much towards flexible and less user-friendly. For example, if I want to set up some dashboards that everyone can use online without authentication, it's really hard to understand. There's this public user, but you need to dig deeper into Python code to understand how to make it secure to let people use it and at the same time hide something that you don't want to show.
Full-stack Web Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
Jul 12, 2024
With Apache Superset, we had some problems with the permissions when we had too many users. Some permissions were not really clear even after reading the documentation.
Apache Superset could be improved by enhancing its interactivity and engagement capabilities. While it serves well for data visualization, it lacks more dynamic features that allow users to interact with data directly through the dashboard. For the next release, including interactive widgets and reporting tools that allow actions on digital assets directly from the dashboard would be beneficial. This functionality would make Superset a more comprehensive digital analytics platform suitable for interactive data exploration and operational management. Implementing actionable buttons for security controls and dashboard management could significantly enhance user interaction, making it more suitable for real-time data manipulation and decision-making.
The product needs improvement in terms of DECT filters. At present, we have only a range or time stamp filter. They could provide more options. The platform's reporting feature needs enhancement. There could be an automatic alignment of headings similar to Tableau, ensuring that if the length exceeds a certain limit, it should transition to the next line while maintaining alignment.
Chief Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Jan 17, 2023
Being an open-source solution, a lot of documentation is not available so you have to go through tutorials on the internet; sometimes the documentation is outdated and therefore misleading. Finding the updated information requires a lot of investigation. There is some bridging documentation available, but you need to go through it and figure out which one fits your use case. The basic to medium-level documentation is okay but when it comes to advanced things like authentication, integrating with identity provider roles and mappings, things can definitely be improved. The automation in terms of APIs for automatically creating roles, and giving privileges to the user can also be improved.
Apache Superset provides seamless integration for data visualization and dashboard creation without the need for developer assistance. Its intuitive, no-code environment supports users to embed, query, and share data insights efficiently.Apache Superset offers a robust platform for data visualization through easy dashboard configuration and data integration. It facilitates query writing and reuses KPIs to ensure data consistency across dashboards. Users can embed dashboards within...
I definitely see some disadvantages in Apache Superset, particularly in the tagging feature which is not up to the mark, creating a little bit of mess for the administrators. We work with a Role-Based Access Control feature in the product. I assess this feature as good; they have permissions which are in more plain English, but there is a little bit of convenience missed out because if I have to create a super user apart from admin, I need to add all the permissions manually.
Apache Superset has good features for supporting multidimensional analysis, but I need more ability to customize. This depends on different tools used for different customers or users; Superset is good for users with limited experience as for technical people and analysts. It's a good tool, but sometimes you need more customization. Building custom graphs was hard compared to Grafana, which is much easier. Generally speaking, it's a different level of customization, so if you need super customization, you might consider using other tools. But for starting out, it's a good tool. One thing I would add is folders because having 1,000 queries makes it horrible to understand which query was written and for which dashboard, with graphs. I would want to see more features such as filters and folders, and improvements in how to organize queries and dashboards overall. I had issues when trying to export and import dashboards; I could not do it on the first attempt. I spent a whole day trying to fix it because I built the dashboard on one laptop, exported it from the web version, and then struggled to import it on another laptop. I believe this process is critical and fixable, but in my case, I could not do it. This led us to consider other tools for continuing our work. It would be great to improve the reliability of the import and export features. For our tasks, Apache Superset's integration with authentication protocols and role-based access control was sufficient, but it would be great if we could create teams and organizations. It actually depends on the size of the company; for small companies, I think it's more than enough. For enterprise or large companies, I would say it may need more advanced roles and organization features.
Apache Superset needs more rich charting capabilities. Second, it could benefit from more real-time capabilities, such as real-time streams over WebSockets. Also, permissions-wise, it should be less confusing because the permissions are a bit misleading. I don't know how to ensure that particular categories or roles have specific permissions while others don't. I understand that there has to be some balance between flexibility and simplicity, but I think it's skewed too much towards flexible and less user-friendly. For example, if I want to set up some dashboards that everyone can use online without authentication, it's really hard to understand. There's this public user, but you need to dig deeper into Python code to understand how to make it secure to let people use it and at the same time hide something that you don't want to show.
With Apache Superset, we had some problems with the permissions when we had too many users. Some permissions were not really clear even after reading the documentation.
Apache Superset could be improved by enhancing its interactivity and engagement capabilities. While it serves well for data visualization, it lacks more dynamic features that allow users to interact with data directly through the dashboard. For the next release, including interactive widgets and reporting tools that allow actions on digital assets directly from the dashboard would be beneficial. This functionality would make Superset a more comprehensive digital analytics platform suitable for interactive data exploration and operational management. Implementing actionable buttons for security controls and dashboard management could significantly enhance user interaction, making it more suitable for real-time data manipulation and decision-making.
The product needs improvement in terms of DECT filters. At present, we have only a range or time stamp filter. They could provide more options. The platform's reporting feature needs enhancement. There could be an automatic alignment of headings similar to Tableau, ensuring that if the length exceeds a certain limit, it should transition to the next line while maintaining alignment.
Dynamic dashboarding could improve to enable smooth navigation when transitioning from a higher to a lower view, allowing for easy accessibility.
Being an open-source solution, a lot of documentation is not available so you have to go through tutorials on the internet; sometimes the documentation is outdated and therefore misleading. Finding the updated information requires a lot of investigation. There is some bridging documentation available, but you need to go through it and figure out which one fits your use case. The basic to medium-level documentation is okay but when it comes to advanced things like authentication, integrating with identity provider roles and mappings, things can definitely be improved. The automation in terms of APIs for automatically creating roles, and giving privileges to the user can also be improved.