Embeddable vs Explo: A Complete Technical Comparison for SaaS Teams

SaaS teams evaluating embedded analytics often find themselves choosing between tools that were built with very different product philosophies in mind.

Explo is an embedded analytics platform designed to help SaaS teams add dashboards quickly, with a strong focus on ease of use, prebuilt components, and fast time to value.

Embeddable is a developer-first analytics toolkit built for teams that want analytics to behave like a native part of their product, with full UI control, scalable performance patterns, and flexible multi-tenant security.

This guide compares both approaches across architecture, developer experience, customization, performance, security, multi-tenancy, pricing, and long-term maintainability to help product and engineering teams make an informed decision.

If you’re building customer-facing analytics inside a SaaS product, Embeddable is usually a better fit than Explo because it offers native embedding, deeper customization, and stronger performance at scale. Explo is better suited to teams that want to ship basic embedded dashboards quickly with minimal engineering effort.

TLDR;

Explo

• Purpose-built for embedded analytics in SaaS.
  
• Very fast to get started with prebuilt dashboards and components.
  
• Embedding relies on iframes and SDK abstractions.
  
• Customization is configuration-driven and limited by Explo’s UI layer.
  
• Pricing scales with usage and end users.
  

Embeddable

• Designed for customer-facing SaaS analytics at scale.
  
• Native DOM embedding with no iframes.
  
• Full UI and interaction control.
  
• High performance through multi-layer caching.
  
• Multi-tenant RLS designed for SaaS products.
  
• Flat, predictable pricing with unlimited users.
  

Quick Overview: Embeddable vs Explo at a Glance

Embedding method

Embeddable:

• Native DOM rendering via web components, React, and Vue.
  
• No iframes.
  
• Two-way interaction with your application logic and UI state.
  

Explo:

• Embedding via iframes and JavaScript SDKs.
  
• Dashboards rendered inside an isolated container.
  
• Interaction handled through SDK events and parameters.
  

Customization

Embeddable:

• Fully customizable components and layouts.
  
• Matches your design system exactly.
  
• Supports custom charts and product-specific interactions.
  

Explo:

• Theming and configuration options available.
  
• Core layouts and components remain Explo-controlled.
  
• Difficult to achieve pixel-perfect parity with your product.
  

Performance

Embeddable:

• Multi-layer caching including L1 in-memory and L2 pre-aggregations.
  
• Designed for high-concurrency, customer-facing analytics.
  

Explo:

• Performance depends on dashboard complexity and query volume.
  
• iframe rendering adds UI overhead.
  
• Higher concurrency requires plan upgrades.
  

Multi-tenancy

Embeddable:

• Server-issued security tokens.
  
• Row-level, column-level, and tenant isolation built in.
  
• No dashboard duplication per tenant.
  

Explo:

• Supports multi-tenancy through parameters and access rules.
  
• Requires careful configuration per customer.
  
• Operational complexity grows as tenant count increases.
  

Setup time

Embeddable:

• Fast setup with minimal infrastructure.
  
• Designed for embedding from day one.
  

Explo:

• Very fast initial setup.
  
• Dashboards can be created quickly with minimal engineering.
  

Integration depth

Embeddable:

• Dashboards render directly inside your DOM.
  
• Tight integration with routing, UI logic, and application state.
  

Explo:

• Dashboards live inside iframes.
  
• Integration handled through SDK events and filters.
  
• Limited flexibility for deep UX integration.
  

Pricing

Embeddable:

• Flat, predictable pricing.
  
• Unlimited users, viewers, and dashboards.
  

Explo:

• Pricing scales by usage and number of end users.
  
• Costs increase as customer adoption grows.
  

Deployment options

Embeddable:

• Cloud or self-hosted.
  

Explo:

• Cloud-hosted only.
  

End-user experience

Embeddable:

• Feels fully native to your application.
  

Explo:

• Feels like an embedded analytics layer rather than a core product feature.
  

What Is Explo

Overview and core philosophy

Explo is an embedded analytics platform focused on helping SaaS teams ship dashboards quickly. It provides a visual dashboard builder, prebuilt components, and SDKs that reduce the amount of engineering required to get analytics into production.

The platform emphasizes speed and simplicity, making it attractive for teams that want to add analytics without building or maintaining analytics infrastructure.

Strengths of Explo

• Purpose-built for embedded analytics.
  
• Very fast onboarding and dashboard creation.
  
• Low engineering overhead for simple use cases.
  
• Good out-of-the-box experience for standard dashboards.
  

Limitations for embedded SaaS use cases

• Embedding relies on iframes.
  
• UI customization is constrained by Explo’s component model.
  
• Limited control over performance tuning.
  
• Pricing scales with usage and users.
  
• Harder to support deeply product-specific UX patterns.
  

What Is Embeddable

Overview and philosophy

Embeddable is a developer-first analytics toolkit designed for SaaS teams that treat analytics as a core product feature rather than an add-on.

Instead of embedding a BI tool, teams embed native components that render inside their application, giving them full control over design, behavior, and performance while avoiding the cost of maintaining analytics infrastructure from scratch.

Key strengths of Embeddable

• Native DOM embedding with no iframe boundaries.
  
• Full UI control and extensibility.
  
• High performance through multi-tier caching.
  
• Powerful end-user self-serve dashboard builder.
  
• Secure, scalable multi-tenant RLS patterns.
  
• Developer-friendly workflows with versioning and CI/CD.
  

Ideal use cases

• Customer-facing analytics inside SaaS products.
  
• Products where UX consistency is critical.
  
• Multi-tenant platforms with growing customer bases.
  
• Teams outgrowing iframe-based embedded analytics tools.
  

Feature Comparison Deep Dive

1. Developer experience

Explo:

• Visual dashboard builder with configuration-driven setup.
  
• Minimal code required for basic dashboards.
  
• SDK used for embedding and interactions.
  
• Limited flexibility for custom behaviors and logic.
  

Embeddable:

• Code-first approach with optional no-code tooling.
  
• Native SDKs for JavaScript, React, and Vue.
  
• Full control over events, variables, and interactions.
  
• Versioned environments aligned with modern engineering workflows.
  

What it implies
Explo optimizes for speed and simplicity.
Embeddable optimizes for long-term product ownership and flexibility.

2. Performance and scalability

Explo:

• Performance depends on dashboard complexity and query volume.
  
• iframe rendering adds overhead.
  
• Scaling requires plan upgrades as usage grows.
  

Embeddable:

• L1 in-memory caching for hot queries.
  
• L2 pre-aggregations for large datasets.
  
• Caching API for tenant-aware refresh strategies.
  
• Lightweight rendering for consistent UX.
  

What it implies
Explo works well at small to medium scale.
Embeddable is designed for high-concurrency SaaS environments.

3. UI customization and design fidelity

Explo:

• Theming options available.
  
• Layout and interaction patterns remain Explo-defined.
  
• Difficult to fully match your design system.
  

Embeddable:

• Complete control over styling and layout.
  
• Supports custom components and charts
  
• Dashboards feel like part of your product.
  

What it implies
If analytics must look and behave exactly like your app, Embeddable offers significantly more flexibility.

4. Security and multi-tenancy

Explo:

• Supports row-level security and user-based filtering.
  
• Requires careful configuration as tenant count grows.
  

Embeddable:

• Tenant-aware security tokens define access.
  
• Row-level, column-level, and object-level policies.
  
• No dashboard duplication required.
  
• Enterprise-grade security standards supported.
  

What it implies
Both support multi-tenancy, but Embeddable’s model is simpler and more scalable for SaaS products.

5. Pricing and ROI

Explo:

• Pricing scales with usage and number of end users.
  
• Costs increase as analytics adoption grows.
  

Embeddable:

• Flat, predictable pricing.
  
• Unlimited users and dashboards.
  
• Better cost alignment with SaaS growth.
  

What it implies
Explo lowers the barrier to entry.
Embeddable lowers long-term cost and operational complexity.

When to Choose Explo

Best for

• Early-stage or mid-stage SaaS products.
  
• Teams that want to ship analytics quickly.
  
• Simple dashboards with limited customization needs.
  

Where it falls short

• iframe-based UX.
  
• Limited design control.
  
• Performance tuning constraints.
  
• Pricing grows with customer usage.
  

When to Choose Embeddable

Best for

• SaaS products where analytics are a core feature.
  
• Teams that care deeply about UX consistency and performance.
  
• Multi-tenant environments at scale.
  
• Developer-driven organizations with long-term product roadmaps.
  

Added value

• Native rendering with no iframe boundaries.
  
• Predictable pricing as usage grows.
  
• High performance for interactive dashboards.
  
• Lower long-term engineering overhead.
  
• Strong end-user self-serve capabilities.
  

Closing perspective

Explo is a strong choice when speed and simplicity are the priority and analytics are an add-on rather than a defining part of the product. It helps teams get dashboards in front of customers quickly with minimal engineering effort.

Embeddable is better suited for SaaS teams that view analytics as part of the product itself. By focusing on native embedding, scalable performance, and full UI control, it enables teams to deliver customer-facing analytics that feel seamless, flexible, and maintainable as the product and customer base grow.

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FAQs

Is Explo good for customer-facing analytics in SaaS products?

Explo can work well for customer-facing analytics when requirements are simple and speed of deployment is the main priority. For more complex SaaS products that need deep UI integration, advanced customization, or high concurrency, its iframe-based approach can become limiting.

Is Embeddable better suited for SaaS products than Explo?

Embeddable is generally better suited for SaaS products where analytics are a core part of the product experience. Its native embedding model, full UI control, and multi-tenant performance patterns align more closely with long-term SaaS requirements.

What is the main difference between Embeddable and Explo?

The main difference is in how analytics are embedded and controlled. Explo focuses on fast, low-effort embedded dashboards using iframes, while Embeddable enables native rendering inside the application with deeper control over UX, performance, and behavior.

How do Embeddable and Explo compare on customization?

Explo offers configuration-based customization and theming, but dashboards retain platform-defined layouts and interactions. Embeddable allows full customization, including layout, styling, interactions, and custom components that match the product’s design system.

Which platform performs better at scale?

Embeddable is designed to handle high-concurrency, multi-tenant SaaS environments using multi-layer caching and pre-aggregations. Explo performs well for moderate usage but may require workarounds or optimizations as traffic and complexity increase.

How do Embeddable and Explo handle multi-tenancy?

Embeddable uses tenant-aware security tokens with row-level and object-level access controls designed for SaaS scale. Explo supports multi-tenant use cases through configuration, but larger tenant counts can increase operational complexity.

Which tool requires more engineering effort to get started?

Explo generally requires less initial engineering effort and is faster to deploy. Embeddable requires more upfront setup but provides greater flexibility, control, and scalability over time.

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