Comparison
ChatPlotDB vs Vanna
Both turn a question into SQL. The real difference is what you get handed: Vanna gives you a framework to build on, ChatPlotDB gives you the finished thing.
Vanna is an open-source Python library for text-to-SQL (MIT-licensed, 23.8k stars, bring your own LLM and vector store), plus a hosted Vanna Cloud layered on top. ChatPlotDB is not a library. It is an application with a config layer, dashboards, alerts and a Slack app, aimed at the people asking the questions rather than the engineers wiring the pipeline.
What each one actuallyhands you on day one
Facts about Vanna are from their GitHub repository and vanna.ai, checked 30 July 2026.
| Feature | ChatPlotDB | Vanna |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A hosted application. Connect a database and ask. | A Python library (pip install vanna) plus an optional hosted cloud layer. |
| Open source | No. Source-available to enterprise customers on request. | Yes, MIT licence, 23.8k stars. The repository was archived and made read-only on 29 March 2026. |
| Databases | PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon DynamoDB, plus CSV and Excel uploads. | PostgreSQL, MySQL, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, SQLite, Oracle, SQL Server, DuckDB, ClickHouse. |
| Models | Claude by default; GPT-5.5, GLM, DeepSeek and Kimi selectable per chat. | Bring your own: OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, Azure, Gemini, Bedrock, Mistral and others. |
| Before the query runs | Executed read-only, with the SQL that ran shown beside the answer. | Your integration decides. The library returns SQL and can run it; the guardrails are yours to build. |
| Dashboards and alerts | Save an answer as a card, refresh it on a schedule, get pinged in Slack on a threshold. | Not part of the framework. Vanna Cloud adds admin, access control and audit logs. |
| Slack | First-party Slack app, answers posted back into the thread. | Build it yourself on the library. |
| Hosted pricing | Free tier, $39/month, $75/seat/month, custom for enterprise. | Vanna Cloud: Explorer $50/month (20 questions a day), Team $500/month (300 a day), Enterprise custom. |
| Run it in your own infrastructure | Enterprise: your AWS account and VPC, models served through Amazon Bedrock, or fully on-premise. | Self-host the open-source package anywhere; Enterprise adds on-premises, VPC and private cloud support. |
Choose Vanna when theassembly is the point
There are cases where a library beats a product, and pretending otherwise would waste your time.
Vanna covers far more of the warehouse world than we do. Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Oracle, SQL Server, DuckDB and ClickHouse are all supported; ChatPlotDB is PostgreSQL, MySQL and DynamoDB today. If your data lives in Snowflake, this comparison ends here and Vanna is your answer.
It is also MIT-licensed, which is a real thing to want. You can read every line, run it on your own hardware for nothing but the LLM bill, swap the vector store, and pin the model to a local Ollama instance so no prompt leaves the building. If your constraint is that the whole stack must be inspectable and free, a framework is the right shape and a product is not.
One thing to weigh alongside that: the open-source repository was archived on 29 March 2026 and is now read-only. The code is still there and still MIT, and Vanna Cloud is actively sold, but if you are betting on the open-source path, factor in that the public repository has stopped moving.
Choose ChatPlotDB whennobody wants to build a tool
Most teams asking "can we query our database in English" do not want to own a text-to-SQL pipeline. They want the answer.
Vanna hands an engineer a library. Somebody then has to choose a vector store, write the training pipeline, build a UI, decide what happens when the model writes a destructive query, and own all of it forever. That is a reasonable project if a text-to-SQL system is your product. It is a poor use of a quarter if you just wanted the operations team to stop filing data tickets.
ChatPlotDB starts where that project ends. The config layer that records which tables matter and what your team's words mean is generated for you by Config Studio rather than assembled as a training set. Queries execute read-only, and the SQL that produced each answer is shown beside it. Answers save to dashboards that refresh on a schedule and alert into Slack.
The trade is honest: fewer databases, no MIT licence, and you cannot read our source unless you are an enterprise customer. In exchange nobody on your team maintains a text-to-SQL system. If you need both the guardrails and the sovereignty, the enterprise deployment runs the whole product inside your own AWS account with every model call going through Amazon Bedrock in your region.
Common questions
The open-source Python package is MIT-licensed and free to self-host: you pay only for the LLM calls and whatever you run it on. Vanna Cloud, the hosted version with admin features, is a paid product: Explorer at $50 a month with a 20-question daily limit, Team at $500 a month with 300 a day, and custom Enterprise pricing, as published on vanna.ai in July 2026.
The GitHub repository was archived on 29 March 2026 and is read-only. The code remains available under the MIT licence and Vanna Cloud continues to be sold, but the public repository no longer accepts changes. Worth knowing before you build a dependency on it.
Not today. ChatPlotDB connects to PostgreSQL, MySQL and Amazon DynamoDB, and queries CSV and Excel files directly. Vanna supports a much wider set of warehouses, including Snowflake, BigQuery and Redshift.
If your analytics live in a warehouse we don't reach yet, tell us: it moves the roadmap more than you'd think.
Not arbitrarily. ChatPlotDB ships a fixed catalogue: Anthropic's Claude models by default, with OpenAI's GPT-5.5, Z.ai's GLM, DeepSeek and Moonshot's Kimi selectable per conversation. Vanna is model-agnostic by design and will happily run against a local Ollama instance.
On an enterprise deployment, model calls are served through Amazon Bedrock inside your own AWS account, which is the sovereignty answer for teams who wanted a local model for that reason.
Both should be pointed at a read-only role: that advice applies regardless of tool. The difference is what ships by default: ChatPlotDB only ever issues read queries and shows you the SQL behind every answer. With Vanna, whatever guardrails you want are yours to design and implement.
[ Sources ]
Everything stated here about Vanna comes from their own published pages, last checked on 30 July 2026. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide, and tell us if anything here has gone out of date.
