9 Best Polymer Alternatives & Competitors in 2024

Cem Ruso
Cem Ruso
September 6, 2024
October 10, 2024

Polymer is modern AI data analysis and visualization software that helps you turn your data into fully customizable dashboards and slide-based presentations. 

Data analysis and analytical teams love using Polymer because of its modern AI features, ease of use, and sleek UI.

However, when you need a tool with multiple integrations and real-time data syncing, that’s when you must explore Polymer alternatives.

In this article, I will tell you why you should try an alternative to Polymer and discuss the best ones in the market.

Why Do You Need a Polymer Alternative?

Here are the three primary reasons why people often look for an alternative to Polymer when it comes to data visualization:

  • Limited integrations
  • Not a team analytics platform
  • Lacks real-time data syncing

Time to go deep into each of the reasons.

Reason 1. Limited Integrations

Polymer lacks key integrations, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Instagram, Twitter Ads, and Stripe. It also doesn’t integrate with some data connectors for free. For example, adding Shopify as a data source is billed separately at $3 per month per store.

Reason 2. Not a Team Analytics Platform

Polymer isn't ideal for teams. Although it allows adding collaborators, I can't annotate something or communicate with my team while staying on the dashboard. 

If I have to give suggestions on a particular metric or refer to some numbers, I'd have to use a third-party communication app. There’s no feature that helps you comment or communicate with your team in-app.

Secondly, Polymer's Basic to Pro plans only allow one editor, while the Team plan allows up to three. That's way less, considering the number of departments in your company that'd need access to analytics.

Reason 3. Lacks Real-Time Data Syncing

Polymer doesn't feed your dashboards with live data from sources. It does allow scheduling a daily or hourly data syncing, but it's not real-time. 

Even with its most expensive plan, $250 per month, you get hourly data syncs while still paying for the Shopify connector (if added).

What are the Best Polymer Alternatives and Competitors?

Some of the best alternatives to Polymer are:

  • Datapad: Track all your essential business metrics with stunning dashboards.
  • Databox: Comprehensive analytics platform that helps you blend and analyze data from multiple sources.
  • Adverity: Data integration and visualization platform. 
  • Metabase: BI and analytics platform offering self-service and embeddable in-app analytics.
  • Luzmo: API-first, modern-age dashboard and analytics platform.
  • Looker Studio: Helps you with extensive data visualization.
  • Power BI: Dynamic, self-serve data visualization and analytics tool.
  • Geckoboard: Helps you build real-time KPI dashboards that reflect product and team performance side-by-side.
  • AgencyAnalytics: Comprehensive reporting platform designed for marketing agencies and freelancers.

1. Datapad

Datapad makes tracking all your essential business metrics a piece of cake, all thanks to its ability to create stunning dashboards.

The software is easy to use, even for people not familiar with data analysis and visualization.

It’s a go-to solution for agencies as the tool makes onboarding new customers easy. 

How does Datapad do it? It does so with the help of its 1-click templates and the feature of sharing performance reports with read-only links.

The AI insights tool lets anyone detect anomalies in their data and provides actionable to-do items to increase performance.

Key Feature #1. Templates

Creating reports for your business is a recurring, time-consuming, and comprehensive process. You have to analyze a bunch of metrics and KPIs and choose the ones you think might fit right into the reports you send to your clients, team members, or customers.

If you’re an agency and want to create the same reports for multiple clients, the process can soon become a nightmare for you.

But thanks to Datapad, you can do all this with just a few clicks.

With Datapad's template features, you can:

  • Choose the right template from a pre-built gallery and apply them in 1-click 
  • Build a custom dashboard and re-use it as a template by changing its sources
  • Share all connected data sources in the workspace with your teammates

‍Key Feature #2. Team Collaboration

When you’re overwhelmed by which KPIs to track, you often end up making errors. So, in such scenarios, two heads are better than one. With Datapad, you can bring your team on board on a dashboard you’ve built, and they can then help you track KPIs better.

What’s more, individual team members are assigned tasks to handle, goals to achieve, and metrics to measure.

With Datapad's team collaboration feature, you can:

  • Get notified whenever there’s an update for any metrics and KPIs you track
  • Communicate around your metrics and KPIs with your team members
  • Get push notifications on your phone to stay updated with all your KPIs

Key Feature #3. Automated Reports & Scorecards

Wouldn't it be great if you could check your business KPIs first thing in the morning, straight from your inbox?

With our dashboard software, you can subscribe to any dashboard and receive daily email updates.

All you have to do is build a dashboard, click the subscribe button, and set your email preferences.

The best part is you can share reports with anyone, even emails outside of your organization or workspace.

Step 1: Subscribe to a dashboard

Step 2: Check your inbox

With Datapad’s report and scorecard automation, you can:

  • Subscribe to any dashboard
  • Receive daily highlights around all KPIs
  • Send reports to users in and outside of your organization
  • Customize the date range, calculation, and styling of KPIs

Pricing

Datapad has a free plan that lets you build 1 report with unlimited sources, unlimited users, and real-time data sync. But if you want to create more such reports, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans it offers:

  • Standard: $30 per month
  • Business: $200 per month

Pros and Cons

✅ Let’s you import KPIs from unlimited data sources in the free plan.

✅ Lets you subscribe to dashboards to get daily highlights.

❌ Variety of charts and graphs selection can be widened.

2. Databox

Databox is a comprehensive analytics platform that helps you blend data from multiple sources and analyze and predict outcomes using beautiful dashboards and reports.

Features

  • Integrates with 100+ apps, tools, and data sources, and offers REST API and SDKs to connect any data source in minutes.
  • Its no-code dashboard designer lets you drag and drop metrics and visuals to create enticing dashboards.
  • Choose from tens and thousands of dashboard templates and preset metrics for your dashboards and customize them to match your branding.
  • Explain spikes or dips on metrics using annotations to provide important context behind an event occurrence that altered performance.
  • Use forecasting and predictive analysis to foresee the best and worst-case scenarios and set goals against verified industry benchmarks.

Pricing

Databox offers a generous free plan for individual use and small projects. Other than that, it has four paid plans:

  • Starter: $59 per month
  • Professional: $169 per month
  • Growth: $399 per month
  • Premium: $999 per month

Pros and Cons

✅ Well-numbered integrations eliminate data silos. 

✅ Extensive catalog of preset dashboard templates and metrics.

❌ Adding more than 3 data sources is chargeable at $6 per month (for all plans).

3. Adverity

Adverity is a data integration and visualization platform enabling modern-day marketers to connect, enrich, and manage data from a centralized hub, keeping AI as a sidekick.

Features

  • Has the largest catalog of 600+ data connectors, including custom and universal options for uninterrupted data import.
  • Allows you to blend data from multiple sources and offers preset transformation templates for standardizing data collection, harmonization, and cleanup.
  • Use AI-powered Data Mapping and Data Dictionary to automatically map out source metrics and dimensions for all data sources.
  • Leverage AI-powered Data Quality Copilot and Naming conventions to proactively address all data quality issues before they occur.

Pricing

Adverity doesn't mention pricing on its official website. However, you can fill out a form and contact their sales team to get a quote.

Pros and Cons

✅ Has an extensive catalog of data connectors.

✅ Comes with AI-powered data integration and harmonization capabilities.

❌ Lacks customization options for dashboards and reports.

4. Metabase

Metabase is a BI and analytics platform offering self-service and embeddable in-app analytics to explore data on your own. It's trusted by 60,000+ companies, including Dribble, Airtable, Calendy, and more.

Features

  • Create interactive dashboards using a drag-and-drop interface and built-in tools like Filters and Action Menu, making dashboards navigable for collaborators and stakeholders.
  • Over 20+ integrated data sources and 15+ built-in visualizations to easily create beautiful live charts and dashboards.
  • Features a Visual Query builder for beginners and an SQL editor for advanced users to deploy interactive charts, perform multi-level aggregations, and dive deeper into data.
  • Click on charts, models, and questions to interact with the drill-through menu to filter, see individual records, auto-generate reports, and more.
  • Easily share dashboards via smart links or schedule automated reports via email or Slack for timely alerts; embed dashboards in web pages, presentations, and more.

Pricing

Metabase is an open-source software and thus is free to use initially. However, to get the best from Metabase analytics, you can sign up for a paid plan that suits your needs:

  • Starter: $85 per month
  • Pro: $500 per month
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing (Starts at $15K per year)

Pros and Cons

✅ Open source and free to self-host.

✅ In-app usage analytics assists in overseeing compliance.

❌ Relies heavily on SQL knowledge.

5. Luzmo

Luzmo is an API-first, modern-age dashboard and analytics platform offering self-serve and embedded analytics for SaaS products and apps.

Features

  • Has an intuitive, drag-and-drop dashboard editor that lets you build interactive dashboards with widgets, visuals, intuitive drill-downs, and one-click actions.
  • Luzmo uses AI and ML to turn screenshots, sketches, design mockups, or text instructions into fully functional dashboards. 
  • Add live data to dashboards from 20+ popular databases, web services, and data warehouses, or hook up your own API. 
  • Extend Luzmo AI for data preparation and exploration; for example, train it to help understand questions in plain text and provide answers.

Pricing

Lumzo offers a 10-day free trial. After which you can choose amongst its paid plans:

  • Basic: $995 per month
  • Pro: $2050 per month
  • Elite: $3100 per month

Pros and Cons

✅ Flexibility to choose preferred AI integration.

✅ Extensive data connectors coupled with white-label analytics – a great duo.

❌ Pricey for startups and small businesses.

6. Looker Studio

Google's Looker Studio is another excellent alternative to Polymer for extensive data visualization. It lets you connect, visualize, and share data via interactive dashboards and beautiful reports.

Features

  • Create data reports with complete flexibility on a blank canvas, add data sources, drag and drop visuals, and other design elements from the ribbon-style toolbar.
  • Access ready-made dashboard templates from Looker's in-house team for Search ads, Google Analytics, Google Ads, YouTube channel reports, and more.
  • Has over 20 native and 900+ partner connectors to access data from any app, tool, and cloud storage. 
  • Choose from a gallery of 50+ pre-built visualizations and widgets, or create custom visuals for your data using Looker Studio community visualizations.

Pricing

Looker Studio is free to get started; the only prerequisite is a Google account. 

Pros and Cons

✅ Ensures end-to-end visibility with version history.

✅ Redo/undo functions make report creation a bliss.

❌ Doesn’t come with manual data refreshing.

7. Power BI

Microsoft's Power BI is a dynamic, self-serve data visualization and analytics tool particularly suited for companies relying on Microsoft's ecosystem.

It offers a range of visualization options and data modeling capabilities catering to the analytical needs of all industries and business sizes, including the likes of P&G, Toyota, KPMG, and T-Mobile. 

Features

  • It has an extensive library of over 500+ connectors and easily connects to on-premises and cloud data sources such as Dynamics 365, SQL Database, and more.
  • Leverage Power Query Editor to prepare, transform, and harmonize data from analysis.
  • Quickly visualize data using bars and charts, tables, line graphs, scatter plots, heatmaps, and more.
  • Power BI offers advanced analysis tools, such as anomaly detection, decomposition trees, and key influencers, to analyze root causes and find possible explanations for unusually high or low values in your database.
  • The Q & A visual in Power BI lets you ask questions about the data using natural language and receive visual-backed answers.

Pricing

Power BI offers a free forever plan. Other than that, it has three paid subscriptions to choose from:

  • Power BI Pro: $10 per user per month
  • Power BI Premium: $20 per user per month
  • Power BI Embedded: Custom pricing

Pros and Cons

✅ Extensive catalog of data connectors.

❌ An outdated UX/UI interface gives PowerBI a steep learning curve.

8. Geckoboard

Geckoboard helps you build real-time KPI dashboards that reflect product and team performance side-by-side. It's for focused teams who don't want to get distracted by numerous insights and reports that don't sit under their core KPIs.

Features

  • Geckoboard has pre-built integrations with 90+ data sources, including Google Analytics, Zendesk, and Salesforce, and offers APIs to import data easily from any cloud platform. 
  • Drag, drop, move, resize, and group your visualizations from multiple data sources into a unified dashboard using the dashboard builder.
  • Use the Interactive View to self-explore metrics and perform root cause analysis for a spike or dip in numbers.
  • Set up TV dashboards with always-on displays for offices and team workspaces; use Goals to showcase individual or team progress against targets to keep employees motivated.
  • Get altered for team wins or time-sensitive issues, like a sharp drop in a metric, via email, Slack, or status indicators widgets. 

Pricing

Geckoboard provides a 14-day risk-free trial. Other than that, it has three paid plans:

  • Essential: $49 per month
  • Pro: $99 per month
  • Scale: $699 per month

Pros and Cons

✅ Real-time data refreshes (on all plans).

✅ Readily accessible on any device, regardless of screen size.

❌ Lacks AI integration.

9. AgencyAnalytics

AgencyAnalytics is a comprehensive reporting platform designed for marketing agencies and freelancers to streamline client reporting and campaign management.

Features

  • Use the drag-and-drop report builder to build personalized dashboards and reports with customizable widgets, custom metrics, annotations, goals, and agency branding.  
  • Configure and schedule reports to be sent automatically according to the agency's reporting schedule and the client's preferred deadlines.
  • Import live data from 80+ marketing integrations for SEO, PPC, social, email, call tracking, and more (new integrations released every month).
  • Has over 50+ ready-made dashboards and reporting templates ready to be white-labeled with your logo and colors, and even hosts them on your domain. 
  • For agencies, AgencyAnalytics offers tools for staff and client management, such as role-based permissions, the ability to create and assign tasks, and sync updates with your existing communication tools like Intercom and Zendesk.

Pricing

AgencyAnalytics offers a 14-day risk-free trial. Other than that, it has three pricing plans:

  • Freelancer: $79 per month
  • Agency: $179 per month
  • Premier: Custom pricing

Pros and Cons

✅ Easy to use as it has a no-code interface.

✅ Offers agency-friendly tools like automated report sharing and white-label analytics.

❌ Lacks integrations with Slack and MS Teams.

Wrapping Up

All the tools mentioned above are great alternatives to Polymer and successfully alleviate its drawbacks. 

Analyzing and visualizing data is part of any business in any category because, without doing so, you can make the right decisions.

Unfortunately, Polymer has limited integrations, is not built for teams, and lacks real-time data syncing, which are the main reasons people opt for an alternative.

But how do you find out which Polymer alternative is right for you? 

Well, there’s no better way than signing up for free trials and judging products for yourself.

If you or your team don’t have the time to try every product on our list, sign up for Datapad, import your KPIs, and create stunning dashboards for you and your team.