Software Alternatives & Startups

Materialize CSS VS Knowi

Compare Materialize CSS VS Knowi and see what are their differences

Materialize CSS

A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
Knowi

Knowi is an agentic analytics platform. AI agents work inside the data layer to query SQL, NoSQL and APIs directly, join across sources without ETL, and build dashboards teams can use or embed in their own product.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Free Free trial
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Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Materialize CSS seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 28 times since March 2021.

social mentions
28 vs 0
Design Tools popularity
100% vs 0%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 91

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Materialize CSS
Knowi
Website materializecss.com knowi.com
Pricing
Open source
Free Free trial Official pricing
Company Startup from the United States · 20 - 49 employees · 2015
Listed in

About Materialize CSS and Knowi

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Materialize CSS
Knowi

No description of Materialize CSS yet.

Knowi is the Agentic Analytics Platform. It unifies data from anywhere, adds a governed semantic layer, and deploys AI agents that analyze, monitor, and act on live business data. Traditional BI tools bolt AI onto dashboards. Knowi was built AI-first. The semantic layer defines your metrics,...

Read more about Knowi

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Materialize CSS 5 features
Knowi 10 features
  • Responsive Design
    Materialize CSS provides a responsive grid system, making it easier to create layouts that work well on various screen sizes and devices.
  • Material Design
    Adheres to Google's Material Design principles, offering a modern and professional look that is consistent across web applications.
  • Component Variety
    Offers a wide range of pre-built components, including forms, buttons, cards, and navigation bars, which helps speed up development.
  • Customization
    Provides options to customize components using Sass, making it flexible for specific design needs.
  • Built-in JavaScript
    Includes built-in JavaScript components like modals, carousels, and tabs, which enhance functionality without requiring additional libraries.

Possible disadvantages

  • Learning Curve
    Although it follows Material Design guidelines, there is a learning curve associated with understanding and implementing its various components and classes.
  • File Size
    Including the full library can make your project heavier, affecting load times, especially for users on slower connections.
  • Customization Complexity
    While customizable, deeply customizing or overriding default styles can sometimes be complicated and time-consuming.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Some components still rely on jQuery, adding to the library size and potentially conflicting with modern JavaScript practices.
  • Community Support
    Compared to larger frameworks like Bootstrap, Materialize CSS has a smaller community, which can result in fewer third-party resources and plugins.
  • Agents Inside the Data Layer
    AI agents connect to schemas and the query engine directly rather than sitting on top of finished dashboards, so they build queries, widgets and dashboards instead of only answering questions about ones that already exist.
  • Native NoSQL Analytics
    Query MongoDB and Elasticsearch in their own query language, including nested documents and arrays, without a BI connector or a separate flattening step.
  • Cross-Source Joins Without ETL
    Blend MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, Databricks SQL, Trino, Salesforce and REST APIs in a single query, without first moving the data into a warehouse.
  • Semantic Layer as a Dataset Service
    Curated datasets, governed business definitions and a shared glossary the data team controls, so plain-English questions resolve against approved metrics rather than raw tables.
  • Wide Range of Integrations
    The platform connects to relational databases, NoSQL stores, cloud warehouses, SaaS APIs and files, including MongoDB, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Snowflake, Databricks SQL, Trino, BigQuery, Redshift, Salesforce and REST endpoints.
  • Real-Time Insights
    Knowi provides real-time data processing and visualization, which enables businesses to access up-to-date insights for timely decision-making.
  • Alerts and Scheduled Reporting
    Threshold and anomaly alerts routed to Slack, email or webhooks, plus scheduled PDF and CSV delivery.
  • MCP Server for AI Assistants
    A Model Context Protocol server so assistants such as Claude can query data, build widgets and create dashboards through Knowi's governed layer.
  • Flexible Deployment
    Run on Knowi Cloud, inside your own VPC, or fully on-premise.
  • No-Code Data Analytics
    Knowi offers a no-code platform that allows users to perform data analytics tasks without needing in-depth programming skills, making it accessible to data-driven teams.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Materialize CSS
Knowi

Overall verdict

  • Materialize CSS is a good choice if you're looking for a framework that emphasizes Material Design and comes with a sleek, modern interface. It's particularly useful for developers who want to quickly integrate Google's design philosophy without delving into custom styling or layout creation.

Why this product is good

  • Materialize CSS is a front-end framework based on Material Design principles developed by Google. It provides a comprehensive set of UI components that help developers create visually appealing and responsive web applications quickly. The framework includes a variety of pre-styled components like buttons, forms, cards, and much more, which adhere to the Material Design guidelines. This consistency in design components helps ensure a cohesive and professional look across web applications. Additionally, it simplifies responsive design with a grid system that's easy to implement, and it comes with excellent documentation and a supportive community.

Recommended for

    Materialize CSS is recommended for teams and developers who prefer Google's Material Design aesthetic, are building applications with a focus on rapid UI development, and value consistency and ease of use. It's also great for projects where a pre-existing UI library speeds up the development process, such as prototypes, admin dashboards, or smaller web applications. However, for highly customized UI components or non-Material Design projects, other frameworks might be more suitable.

No analysis of Knowi yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Materialize CSS 1 video + Add
Knowi 1 video + Add

Build A Travel Agency Theme With Materialize CSS 1.0.0

Knowi: End-to-End AI Analytics Platform - Architecture Overview

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Materialize CSS
Knowi
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Materialize CSS and Knowi.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

Knowi's answer:

Verizon Telstra Everbridge ConvergeOne NJM Insurance Volante Systems intlx Solutions Alteas Health Hometime Tata

What makes your product unique?

Knowi's answer:

Knowi runs AI agents inside the data layer rather than on top of finished dashboards. The agents reach schemas and the query engine directly, which means they can build queries, widgets and dashboards, not just answer questions about ones that already exist.

That architecture comes from what Knowi was built to do: query data where it already lives. It speaks MongoDB and Elasticsearch in their own query language, including nested documents and arrays, and it joins across MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, Databricks SQL, Trino, Salesforce and REST APIs in a single query without first moving anything into a warehouse.

Knowi also runs its own AI by default, with OpenAI and Claude available as optional integrations rather than requirements, and it deploys to cloud, your own VPC, on-premises via Docker or Kubernetes, or air-gapped.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Knowi's answer:

Three practical reasons.

Your data does not have to be relational first. Most BI tools need a warehouse and an ETL pipeline before you see a chart, which means unstructured, nested and API data either gets flattened or gets left out. Knowi queries those sources natively, so the modelling work you would normally do up front becomes optional.

The AI is part of the query path, not a chat box on the side. Many platforms added a copilot that describes existing dashboards. Knowi's agents have access to the schema and the query engine, so they can create new datasets, widgets and dashboards from a question.

You control where it runs and which model touches your data. Knowi AI is the default, third-party models are optional, and deployment can be Knowi Cloud, your own VPC, on-premises, or air-gapped. Knowi is SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR compliant, and offers a HIPAA BAA.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Knowi's answer:

Data, engineering and product teams at mid-market and enterprise companies whose data is spread across more than one kind of system: NoSQL alongside SQL, warehouses alongside SaaS APIs and documents.

Two buying patterns show up most often. Internal analytics teams who need governed self-service across sources without building a pipeline for every question. And product teams who need customer-facing, multi-tenant analytics embedded inside their own application with row-level access control.

By industry, the customer base skews to telecom, healthcare, manufacturing, SaaS and adtech, proptech and e-commerce. Knowi is sold through a sales team and priced per deployment rather than by public self-serve tier.

What's the story behind your product?

Knowi's answer:

Knowi was founded in 2014, at the point where a lot of production data had stopped being relational. Teams were running MongoDB and Elasticsearch, and the BI tools of the day all assumed a star schema in a warehouse. Getting a dashboard meant building a pipeline first, and anything nested or semi-structured got flattened or dropped along the way.

Knowi was built the other way round: connect to the source, query it in its own language, and join across sources at query time instead of moving the data. Cross-source joins, post-query transformation and a dataset layer that data teams could govern followed from that starting point, and embedded analytics came from customers who wanted to give the same views to their own users.

The AI work is a continuation rather than a pivot. Because Knowi already owned the query path across every connected source, AI agents could be placed inside the data layer with access to schemas and the query engine, instead of being bolted onto a finished dashboard.

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Materialize CSS no reviews yet
Knowi no reviews yet

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Materialize CSS 28 mentions
Knowi 0 mentions
  • JavaScript Awesome Package
    Materialize - Responsive front-end framework based on Material Design. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Mistakes Were Made
    Sure, why not use Blazor? It makes life easier for the developers who are primarily backend, to work on the frontend as well. Seems like the better choice. So what's next? The UI library. No shade to the long-time standing Bootstrap, but... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • Top 5 Best CSS Frameworks for Responsive Web Design in 2024
    Materialize is a modern CSS framework based on Google’s Material Design. It was created and designed by Google to provide a unified and consistent user interface across all its products. Materialize is focused on user experience as it... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago

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Tracking Knowi since Mar 2021.

Alternatives to Materialize CSS and Knowi

When comparing Materialize CSS and Knowi, you can also consider the following products.