Metabase

Integrating Apache Pinot with Metabase

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for setting up Metabase with an Apache Pinot connector. The integration allows you to visualize and explore data stored in Apache Pinot directly within Metabase dashboards.

Note: This is a preview version. For issues or bug reports, please join slack or file github issue.

The code is available at https://github.com/startreedata/metabase-pinot-driver under Apache 2 license.

Prerequisites

Ensure the following tools are installed on your system:

• Git

• Docker

• Node.js (version 22+)

• Java (version 17+)

• Clojure 1.12.1.1550

• NodeJS 22

• NPM 10

• Yarn 1.22

• Apache Pinot 1.3.0

• Metabase v0.55.7

QuickStart

Local Run

• Start Pinot

To be simple, use Pinot docker image to run with quickstart

docker run -d --name pinot-quickstart -p 9000:9000 -p 8000:8000 -p 8080:8080 apachepinot/pinot:latest  QuickStart -type MULTI_STAGE

• Download Metabase

Go to Metabase release page, find the release jar.

This quickstart uses Metabase v0.55.7 .

JAR download: https://downloads.metabase.com/v0.55.7.x/metabase.jar

mkdir -p /tmp/metabase
cd /tmp/metabase
wget https://downloads.metabase.com/v0.55.7.x/metabase.jar

• Download Pinot driver

Pinot plugins are released at https://github.com/startreedata/metabase-pinot-driver/releases

This QuickStart uses Pinot Driver v1.1.0

mkdir -p /tmp/metabase/plugins
cd /tmp/metabase/plugins
wget -O pinot.metabase-driver.jar  https://github.com/startreedata/metabase-pinot-driver/releases/download/v1.1.0/pinot.metabase-driver-v1.1.0.jar

• Start Metabase with Pinot plugin

cd /tmp/metabase
java --add-opens java.base/java.nio=ALL-UNNAMED -jar metabase.jar

Now everything should come up, you could also find the pinot plugin is loaed from the log:

Once Metabase is up, go to http://localhost:3000 to explore it.

After the login, you can click the right side bar to Add Pinot database:

After the configuration is done, Metabase will generate some explorations automatically.\

Docker Compose

Copy below Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml to a directory, e.g. /tmp/metabase .

Dockerfile:

FROM metabase/metabase:v0.55.7

RUN mkdir -p /plugins && \
    curl -L -o /plugins/pinot.metabase-driver.jar \
    https://github.com/startreedata/metabase-pinot-driver/releases/download/v1.1.0/pinot.metabase-driver-v1.1.0.jar

ENV MB_PLUGINS_DIR=/plugins

docker-compose.yml:

services:
  metabase:
    build: .
    container_name: metabase-pinot
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - MB_PLUGINS_DIR=/plugins
    volumes:
      - metabase_data:/metabase-data
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  metabase_data:

Run docker compose up to start everything:

Advanced Options

Authentication header

Users can enable it by expanding the advanced options, then enable Authentication header

The supported Auth Token Type is Basic or Bearer .

Auth Token Value is a string from your admin.