Comparison
Flitch vs Sigma
A spreadsheet interface over your database or warehouse against an AI-first dashboard builder. What Sigma needs in place before you start.
Which should you choose?
Flitch generates a web application from a description and publishes it, at a price you can read on the website. Sigma is a spreadsheet grid you build in by hand, and it publishes no price at all. Sigma is the better choice if your team thinks in formulas and needs to work interactively over hundreds of millions of rows, which it does better than anything else.
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Flitch vs Sigma at a glance
| Flitch | Sigma | |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Yes: free, $20/month, or $30/user | No. Free trial, then contact sales |
| Free tier | Yes, permanent | No, free trial only |
| How the numbers are computed | Generated SQL, aggregated at the source against the semantic layer | Generated SQL too, pushed into your warehouse from the grid you build |
| Costs beyond the sticker price | None. Credits are the whole bill | Your warehouse compute. Sigma generates the SQL, your Snowflake or BigQuery account pays for it |
| Data platform required | No, it connects to 61 sources including files | Yes. Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, PostgreSQL, AlloyDB or MySQL |
| AI included | Generation is the product. The plan fee is the credit allowance: $20 buys 200 credits worth $20 | Sigma AI features, priced within an unpublished plan |
| Core interface | Describe a dashboard, get one | A spreadsheet grid over live warehouse tables |
| Who it suits | Anyone, including people with no data stack | Spreadsheet-fluent analysts on a modern warehouse |
| Scale | Aggregates in SQL at the source, so the warehouse does the work | Billions of rows, queried live in the warehouse |
| Integrations | 61, including file upload, an AI API finder and input tables | 7 data platforms: 4 warehouses and 3 databases |
| Semantic layer | Yes, relationships and calculations | Yes, workbooks, datasets and models |
| Public publishing | Custom domains, password protection, email-restricted sharing | Embedding and seat-bound sharing |
| Write-back | Input tables, dashboards that accept data entry | Input tables, written back to the warehouse |
What does Sigma cost?
Sigma does not publish pricing. The pricing page offers a free trial and a demo request, and everything else goes through sales. That is a legitimate choice for a product sold to companies with a data platform, and it is also a real practical difference: you can read Flitch’s prices in ten seconds, free, $20 per month flat, or $30 per user per month, and you cannot do that with Sigma. If budget certainty matters at your stage, that gap is the comparison.
What do you need in place before Sigma works?
A supported data platform, and the list is broader than Sigma’s warehouse-native reputation suggests: Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift and Databricks, but also PostgreSQL, AlloyDB and MySQL, with some features varying by platform. So an ordinary Postgres database is enough and you do not need a cloud warehouse specifically. What you do need is for the data to already be in one of them, because Sigma queries your platform and does not store data itself. Where that holds, the architecture is a real strength: nothing moves, governance stays where you put it, and you can work interactively over very large tables because the platform does the work. Where it does not, Sigma has no route in. Flitch connects to 61 integrations covering 18 databases, 3 warehouses, files, SaaS applications and input tables, so it does not require anything to exist first.
What is Sigma actually good at?
Letting spreadsheet people work on warehouse-scale data without SQL, which is a genuinely hard problem well solved. The interface is a familiar grid with formulas, pivots and filters, but every action compiles to warehouse SQL underneath. Somebody who has spent fifteen years in Excel can be productive on a billion-row table in an afternoon, with no extract, no sampling and no waiting on an analyst. Nothing in Flitch competes with that, and if that description matches your team, Sigma is the right answer.
How differently do you build a dashboard?
In Sigma you build it: you shape the data in the grid, create the charts you want and lay out the workbook, as a skilled person doing skilled work quickly. In Flitch you describe it and the dashboard is generated, then refined in plain language or edited as code. Sigma is faster than traditional BI at manual building; Flitch removes the building. The trade is control: a Sigma workbook is exactly what its author intended, while a generated dashboard is a starting point you correct. Which is better depends entirely on whether you have somebody who wants to do the building.
Where does the dashboard end up?
Sigma shares within its platform and supports embedding into your own product, both bound to seats and governed by your warehouse permissions, which is the right model for internal analytics and customer-facing embedded use. Flitch publishes to a URL on your own custom domain, optionally behind a password or restricted to named email addresses, with Ask AI available to viewers who have no account at all. If the audience is clients or the public rather than colleagues, that is the difference.
Choose Sigma if
- Your team is spreadsheet-fluent and wants formulas, not prompts
- You need to work interactively over hundreds of millions of rows
- You want every query pushed down into your own warehouse at that scale
- You are embedding governed analytics into your own product
- A sales conversation and an annual contract are normal for you
Choose Flitch if
- Your data is not in a database or warehouse at all, so Sigma has no way in
- You want to know the price without contacting anyone
- You want the dashboard generated rather than built by hand
- Your data is in SaaS apps, files, or does not exist in a system yet
- You want a permanent free tier rather than a trial
- The dashboard is going to clients or onto your own domain
Flitch vs Sigma FAQ
How much does Sigma cost?
Sigma does not publish pricing. The site offers a free trial and a demo request, with everything else through sales. Flitch publishes its prices: free, $20 per month flat, or $30 per user per month.
What does Sigma cost beyond the subscription?
Your warehouse compute. Sigma pushes generated SQL down into Snowflake, BigQuery or whichever platform you use, so every query a user runs consumes credits on your account rather than Sigma’s. Sigma works hard to reduce this, merging queries and caching results for around ten minutes so repeats do not hit the warehouse at all, but the compute is still yours. Since Sigma does not publish a subscription price either, the total is two unknowns rather than one. Flitch queries the source and caches results, and credits are the whole bill.
Can I use Sigma without a data warehouse?
You do not need a cloud warehouse specifically. Sigma supports Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift and Databricks but also PostgreSQL, AlloyDB and MySQL, so an ordinary database works. You do need the data to already be in one of them, because Sigma queries your platform rather than storing data. Flitch connects to 61 integrations including files, SaaS applications and input tables, so nothing has to exist first.
Is Flitch as fast as Sigma on very large tables?
No. Sigma pushes work down into your warehouse and is built for interactive analysis over hundreds of millions of rows. Flitch suits small to mid-size datasets, and for warehouse-scale exploration Sigma is the better tool.
Do both support write-back?
Yes, differently. Sigma has input tables that write back into your warehouse. Flitch has input tables that let a published dashboard collect data from the people using it, without requiring a warehouse.
Which is easier for someone who only knows Excel?
Sigma, if you want to keep working in a grid with formulas, which it does better than anything else. Flitch is easier if you would rather describe the result than build it, since it requires no spreadsheet skill either.