Simple Analytics
Privacy analytics tightening its API and moving IP blocking off the CDN
Comparison · Analytics
MotherDuck vs Umami
A side-by-side editorial comparison of MotherDuck and Umami — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
MotherDuck vs Umami: at a glance
What is MotherDuck?
DuckDB in the cloud is turning into an agent's workspace, not just a query engine.
MotherDuck runs DuckDB as a managed service with hybrid local/cloud execution, and its release notes read as weekly batches rather than headline launches. The past two months added the pieces an analytics platform needs to be bought rather than tried: RBAC, SCIM, regional coverage in Dublin, Sydney, and Tokyo, and a Postgres wire endpoint that lets Looker, dbt Cloud, DBeaver, and DataGrip connect without a custom driver. Alongside that, Dives (shareable data apps) went GA and Flights (Python data pipelines) went from Preview to available on every plan.
What is Umami?
Umami spent late 2025 patching Next.js CVEs, then shipped Boards and Session Replay in v3.1.0.
The window splits sharply. Four of six releases are December 2025 patches across the v2 and v3 lines, all responding to the same Next.js and React security advisories plus Docker build breakage — several shipped within days of each other because the first fix updated Next.js without the affected React versions. Then v3.1.0 in April 2026 delivered custom dashboards as Boards, Session Replay, Web Vitals performance tracking, a redesigned share page, and a large batch of fixes.
MotherDuck vs Umami: editorial side-by-side
MotherDuck
6.3ANALYTICS
DuckDB in the cloud is turning into an agent's workspace, not just a query engine.
◆ Current state
MotherDuck runs DuckDB as a managed service with hybrid local/cloud execution, and its release notes read as weekly batches rather than headline launches. The past two months added the pieces an analytics platform needs to be bought rather than tried: RBAC, SCIM, regional coverage in Dublin, Sydney, and Tokyo, and a Postgres wire endpoint that lets Looker, dbt Cloud, DBeaver, and DataGrip connect without a custom driver. Alongside that, Dives (shareable data apps) went GA and Flights (Python data pipelines) went from Preview to available on every plan.
◆ Where it's heading
The clearer arc is that every new surface is built to be driven by an agent as well as a human. Flights are creatable via SQL, UI, or any MCP client; Dives carry statuses that the MCP tools filter on; MCP responses moved to a token-efficient encoding; and the newest release adds Guides, where an organization's metric definitions and join rules live in MotherDuck and get read automatically by agents through MCP. In parallel, the storage story keeps opening outward — Databricks-managed Iceberg writes, Cloudflare R2 as a persisted Iceberg catalog, server-side attach of external Iceberg REST catalogs — so MotherDuck queries data it does not own.
◆ Prediction
Guides is the piece to watch: expect it to leave Preview with governance attached — versioning, ownership, and the ability to require a guide before an agent writes SQL — since a shared definition layer is only trustworthy if someone controls it.
Umami
0.0ANALYTICS
Umami spent late 2025 patching Next.js CVEs, then shipped Boards and Session Replay in v3.1.0.
◆ Current state
The window splits sharply. Four of six releases are December 2025 patches across the v2 and v3 lines, all responding to the same Next.js and React security advisories plus Docker build breakage — several shipped within days of each other because the first fix updated Next.js without the affected React versions. Then v3.1.0 in April 2026 delivered custom dashboards as Boards, Session Replay, Web Vitals performance tracking, a redesigned share page, and a large batch of fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The security cluster is a framework dependency showing its cost — an analytics tool inheriting its release schedule from Next.js advisories. v3.1.0 is where product work resumes, and its content is telling: Session Replay and Web Vitals move Umami past pageview counting into behaviour and performance, which is the territory occupied by heavier commercial analytics rather than the lightweight privacy-first tools it grew up alongside.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next releases to build on Boards and Session Replay rather than return to the counting core, since both are new surfaces that arrived with a single release and no follow-up yet.
Alternatives to MotherDuck and Umami
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either MotherDuck or Umami.
Holistics
A BI tool extending analytics-as-code to charts while smoothing the point-and-click path
Klipfolio
Dashboard analytics in slow maintenance, with admin controls the only moving part
Basedash
An AI BI tool turning itself into an API other products can build analytics on
ManageEngine ADManager Plus
ADManager Plus opened to third-party identity apps in January, then shipped six months of fixes.
VictoriaMetrics
Five of six VictoriaMetrics entries are scraped GitHub page furniture; one is a real LTS patch.
See all MotherDuck alternatives → · See all Umami alternatives →
Recent activity from MotherDuck and Umami
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoMotherDuckGuides: shared agent context for metric definitions ⚡
- 7d agoMotherDuckRBAC lands, plus Cloudflare R2 Iceberg read/write
- 14d agoMotherDuckSydney and Tokyo regions; scheduled Flights reach Lite
- 21d agoMotherDuckFlights open to all plans; Databricks Iceberg writes
- 28d agoMotherDuckServer-side Iceberg attach and dbt Cloud via Postgres
- 1mo agoMotherDuckDuckDB 1.4.5/1.5.4 and Postgres endpoint BI metadata
- 3mo agoUmamiv3.1.0: Boards, Session Replay and Web Vitals ⚡
- 7mo agoUmamiv3.0.3: Next.js security patch
- 7mo agoUmamiv2.20.2: Next.js security patch for the v2 line
- 7mo agoUmamiv2.20.1: React version fix and Docker build repairs
- 7mo agoUmamiv2.20.0: Next.js CVE fix for the v2 line
- 7mo agoUmamiv3.0.2: Next.js RSC vulnerability patch and UI fixes
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between MotherDuck and Umami?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. MotherDuck is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is MotherDuck better than Umami?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. MotherDuck is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to MotherDuck?
Top MotherDuck alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "MotherDuck alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/motherduck for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Umami?
Top Umami alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Umami alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/umami for the full list with editorial commentary on each.