Skip to content
View helicalinsight's full-sized avatar
49 followers · 8 following

Achievements

Achievement: Arctic Code Vault ContributorAchievement: Starstruckx2

Achievements

Achievement: Arctic Code Vault ContributorAchievement: Starstruckx2

Block or report helicalinsight

Block user

Prevent this user from interacting with your repositories and sending you notifications. Learn more about blocking users.

You must be logged in to block users.

Maximum 250 characters. Please don’t include any personal information such as legal names or email addresses. Markdown is supported. This note will only be visible to you.
Report abuse

Contact GitHub support about this user’s behavior. Learn more about reporting abuse.

Report abuse
helicalinsight/README.md

Helical Insight

A Unified Open Source Enterprise Ready Embedded BI with AI Capabilities ~ providing all enterprise features in the open source free version.

GitHub release GitHub Stars Docker Pulls Build HelicalInsight IssuesContributors

Helical Insight is an open source embeddable BI product providing a unified BI experience which includes.

  • AI assisted chat driven analytics with option of bring your own LLM
  • Paginated pixel perfect printer friendly reports (similar to crystal reports, SSRS etc)
  • Interactive dashboards with drill down drill through and interactivity

Resources

Concept Video Overview

Introduction

Demo

Helical Insight Introduction Reach out for a personalized demo on support@helicalinsight.com

Key Features

Helical Insight is designed for organizations that need a complete Business Intelligence and Reporting platform without compromising flexibility or scalability.

Feature Description
🤖 AI Analytics Analyze data using natural language, generate SQL automatically, summarize reports, and uncover insights with AI-powered analytics with agentic capabilities.
📑 Paginated Pixel Perfect Reporting Design professional paginated pixel perfect reports suitable for invoices, MIS reports, financial statements, operational reports, and regulatory reporting.
📊 Interactive Dashboards Create highly interactive dashboards with drill-down, drill-through, filters, KPI widgets, maps, charts, and advanced visualizations.
🌍 Localization Support for localization.
📤 Multiple Export Formats Export dashboards and reports to PDF, Excel, CSV, Word, HTML, JSON, XML, and more.
🔗 Embedded Analytics Seamlessly embed AI chatbot, dashboards, and paginated reports into web applications, SaaS platforms, customer portals, and enterprise applications.
🎨 White Labeling Fully customize logos, themes, colors, URLs, and branding for OEM and embedded deployments. White Label Guide
👥 Multi-Tenancy Support multiple customers or departments from a single deployment with complete data isolation.
🔐 Enterprise Security Row-wise, column-wise and table-wise data security based on logged-in user context. Supports JWT, Okta, Keycloak, OAuth and custom token-based SSO. SSO Guide
📧 Scheduling & Report Bursting Automatically schedule reports and dashboards, deliver them via email, and distribute personalized reports.
📈 Advanced Visualizations Various chart types, maps, pivot tables and support for custom JavaScript visualizations.
⚡ High Performance Built-in caching, pagination, virtualization, load balancing, and clustering for enterprise-scale deployments.
🔌 REST APIs Extensive REST API support for automation and extension.
🐳 Modern Deployment Deploy on Windows, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments.
🛠 Developer Friendly Extend using Java, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Liquid Template Language, APIs, plugins, and custom workflows (HWF).

Supported Databases

Helical Insight connects to virtually any modern data source through native connectors, JDBC, REST APIs, and custom integrations. Users can also upload custom JDBC drivers and start using them immediately.

Big Data & Analytics Flat Files & Cloud Storage RDBMS NoSQL & Big Data Advanced / Enterprise
Amazon Athena Flat File Microsoft Access Amazon DynamoDB API
Amazon Redshift AWS S3 Files MySQL CockroachDB Databricks
Apache Drill Azure Blob Storage MySQL CI ClickHouse Databricks (Alternate)
ClickHouse Cloudflare R2 MariaDB DuckDB Dremio
Google BigQuery CSV PostgreSQL Elasticsearch DynamicSwitch
Apache Hive Excel Oracle Database Apache Hive Firebird SQL
Presto Google Sheets SQL Server YugabyteDB Informix
Trino JSON SQL Server (Legacy) Snowflake Custom JDBC Driver
Snowflake Parquet IBM DB2
Teradata TSV SAP HANA
Google Cloud Storage SQLite

Introduction

Helical Insight Comparison with Modern Open Source BI Tools

We have covered in detail comparisons of Helical Insight with open-source BI platforms such as: Superset, Metabase, Redash, Lightdash

The comparison includes:

  • Features
  • Embedding
  • SSO
  • Row-Level Security
  • Modules
  • Reporting
  • Dashboarding
  • AI Features

For a more detailed comparison, refer to the blog : Comparison link

Comparison Matrix

Helical Insight Comparison with Traditional Reporting Tools

We also compare Helical Insight with reporting-first tools including: JasperReports, BIRT, Pentaho, Crystal Reports

The comparison covers:

  • Reporting capabilities
  • Dashboarding
  • Embedded analytics
  • Security
  • Scheduling
  • Exporting
  • Modern BI requirements

For a more detailed comparison, refer to the blog : Comparison link

Traditional Reporting Comparison

Pick your path

You want to… Do this
Run the product (no coding) Run Helical Insight
Contribute / develop Developer setup

Configuration is handled for you. End users copy one .env file and start Docker. Contributors run one setup script, then work on the component they care about.

Run Helical Insight (zero configuration)

Best path for downloads, demos, and anyone who just wants the app up.

You need Docker and Docker Compose. Nothing else.

From a Docker package (ZIP)

Download the latest Docker package (ZIP)

  1. Unzip the package and open the folder that contains docker-compose.yml.

  2. Copy settings (defaults are fine on your own machine):

    cp .env.example .env
# Windows PowerShell: Copy-Item .env.example .env

  3. Start:

    docker compose up -d

  4. Open https://localhost — login: hiadmin / hiadmin

From this git repository

git clone https://github.com/helicalinsight/helicalinsight.git
cd helicalinsight

# One-time: link Instant BI + create docker/.env
./scripts/setup-dev.sh          # Linux / macOS
# .\scripts\setup-dev.ps1       # Windows PowerShell

cd docker
docker compose up -d

Open https://localhost — login: hiadmin / hiadmin

Full Docker guide (stop, logs, ports, updates): docker/readme/readme.md

First start takes a few minutes — that is normal

The first docker compose up is the slowest. Wait for containers to become healthy.

What happens Why it takes time
Image pull / Instant BI build Downloads images; builds Instant BI once if the local image is missing (deps baked into image)
App bootstrap Tomcat starts; Chrome may install for export (INSTALL_CHROME=true by default)

How to know it is ready

cd docker
docker compose ps          # wait until services look healthy / running
docker compose logs -f     # watch progress; Ctrl+C to stop following

Then open https://localhost. Later starts are much faster (images and Instant BI deps are cached).

Optional speed tip (no PDF/export needed): in docker/.env set INSTALL_CHROME=false, then restart.

Username Password Role
hiadmin hiadmin Administrator
hiuser hiuser Standard user

Change these credentials outside local/demo use.

Developer setup

Goal: spend time on product work, not path/XML/env hunting. Run the shared setup once, then start only the stack pieces you need.

What’s in this repo

Component Directory Stack Details
Backend server/ Java 25, Spring, Hibernate, Tomcat WAR server/README.md
Frontend client/ React 17, Redux, Ant Design client/README.md
Instant BI ib/ Python, Flask, LangChain / LangGraph ib/README.md 
┌────────────┐     /hi-ee/*     ┌────────────┐     Instant BI API     ┌────────────┐
│  Frontend  │ ───────────────► │  Backend   │ ─────────────────────► │ Instant BI │
│  :3000     │                  │  :8080     │                        │  :8000     │
└────────────┘                  └────────────┘                        └────────────┘

Recommended IDE

Area Recommendation
Backend Eclipse IDE (Enterprise Java / Web) — best fit: add a Tomcat 11 server in Eclipse and run/debug the presentation WAR without manual copy-deploy
Frontend VS Code, Cursor, or any Node-friendly editor
Instant BI VS Code, Cursor, or any Python-friendly editor

Other Java IDEs (e.g. IntelliJ IDEA) work, but Eclipse + Tomcat is the supported day-to-day path for the backend. Steps: server/README.md — Eclipse + Tomcat.

1. Prerequisites (once)

Tool Version Needed for
JDK 25+ Backend
Maven 3.8+ Backend
Node.js 18+ Frontend
npm 9+ Frontend
Python 3.9+ Instant BI (native)
Apache Tomcat 11.x+ Backend (native only)
Docker + Compose recent Fastest full stack / product run 
./scripts/check-prerequisites.sh      # Linux / macOS
# .\scripts\check-prerequisites.ps1  # Windows PowerShell

2. One-time repo setup (required)

Patches hi-repository paths for your machine, creates .env files, and links Instant BI into docker/instantbi/helicalbi (needed for Docker from a git checkout).

./scripts/setup-dev.sh      # Linux / macOS
# .\scripts\setup-dev.ps1  # Windows PowerShell

After this, you should not hand-edit install paths for normal local work.

3. Choose how you work

A — Full stack in Docker (recommended for most contributors)

Runs backend + Postgres + Nginx + Instant BI with minimal local tooling:

cd docker
docker compose up -d
# https://localhost  →  hiadmin / hiadmin

Build the backend from source instead of the published image:

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build
# http://localhost:8080/hi-ee/  →  hiadmin / hiadmin

B — Native: work on one component

Use this when you need a fast edit–reload loop on a single app.

Backend — Eclipse + Tomcat (recommended) or WAR deploy

Recommended: use Eclipse with a Tomcat 11 server and deploy the presentation module as context /hi-ee. See server/README.md — Eclipse + Tomcat.

Or build and deploy by hand:

cd server
mvn clean package -DskipTests
# Deploy as hi-ee.war so the context path matches the frontend:
# presentation/target/hi-ee-7.0.0.war  →  $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/hi-ee.war

Default Maven profile uses embedded Derby under server/db/ (no Postgres install).
Verify: http://localhost:8080/hi-ee/

More: server/README.md

Frontend — React dev server (needs a running backend) 
cd client
npm ci --legacy-peer-deps
npm run start18
# http://localhost:3000

Dev proxy defaults to http://localhost:8080. Start the backend (native Tomcat or Docker) first.

More: client/README.md

Instant BI — Python service on port 8000 
cd ib/helicalbi
python -m venv .venv
# Linux / macOS: source .venv/bin/activate
# Windows:       .\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env    # defaults use stub LLM — no API key required
python app.py
# http://localhost:8000

Or let Docker run it as part of the compose stack (after setup-dev).

More: ib/README.md

Suggested day-to-day flows

You’re changing… Typical loop
UI only Backend via Docker → npm run start18 in client/
Java APIs / reports Build & deploy WAR (or docker-compose.dev.yml) → hit API or UI
Instant BI / LLM Run ib/helicalbi locally or Instant BI container → exercise from the product UI
Everything cd docker && docker compose up -d

Tests

# Backend
cd server && mvn test

# Frontend
cd client && npm test

# Instant BI
cd ib/helicalbi && pytest -m "not llm"

CI graph: .github/workflows/README.md

Repository structure

├── client/                  # React frontend
├── server/                  # Java backend (Maven multi-module → hi-ee WAR)
│   ├── core/ adhoc/ export/ scheduling/ …
│   ├── presentation/        # WAR packaging → hi-ee-7.0.0.war
│   └── hi-repository/       # System config and templates
├── ib/helicalbi/            # Instant BI (Python)
├── docker/                  # One-command product run (users + contributors)
├── scripts/                 # setup-dev, prerequisite checks
├── docker-compose.dev.yml   # Build backend from source in Docker
└── README.md

The WAR is built as hi-ee-7.0.0.war but must be deployed as hi-ee.war so the Tomcat context /hi-ee matches the frontend.

Contributing

Fork the repo → work on a branch → open a pull request. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full flow. Keep PRs focused; prefer product changes over one-off machine config commits (no secrets, no personal paths, no .env).

🚀 Start Building with Helical Insight Today

Whether you're creating:

  • Executive Dashboards
  • Enterprise Reports
  • Embedded Analytics
  • AI-Powered Business Intelligence

Helical Insight provides everything you need in one powerful platform.

⭐ Star this repository if you find it useful.

Connect With Us

Pinned Loading

  1. helicalinsight helicalinsight Public

    Free, open source BI platform with AI conversational analytics (BYO-LLM), pixel-perfect paginated reports, interactive dashboards, SSO, embedding, multi-tenancy & row-level security. Every feature …

    JavaScript 391 120