Three engineers build an HTML BI dashboard platform with Claude, testing it against a $150k Looker bill
What happened
An Oct 24 report says three data platform engineers at one company used Claude to build an internal BI dashboard platform in HTML, exploring a replacement for Looker, which cost $150,000. After eight months, the platform's weekly users were close to or above the company's internal Looker weekly users, and Looker usage fell about a third. The platform reuses Snowflake user permissions and the dbt semantic layer. For the security risk of arbitrary JavaScript, it uses isolated iframes, credential isolation and post-publish checks.
Written by AI from the coverage · updated 1 hour ago
Coverage
Follow the reports to see the story from different sides.
- Hacker News front pagePickReplacing a $150k Looker with HTML files: can a company build its own BI platform?
Three data platform engineers at one company used Claude to build an HTML dashboard platform. Eight months later its weekly user count is near or above the company's internal Looker, and Looker usage has dropped by about a third. The platform reuses Snowflake user permissions and the dbt semantic layer, and handles the security risk of arbitrary JavaScript with isolated iframes, credential isolation and post-publish checks.
Heat over time
Not enough continuous observations to draw a trend yet.