Board vs MicroStrategy comparison

Read 159 MicroStrategy reviews

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Board

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Board and MicroStrategy compete in the business intelligence space. MicroStrategy appears to have an upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set that justifies its higher price point.

Features: Board integrates seamlessly with multiple data sources and focuses on ease of use, intuitive analytics, and excels in planning and forecasting. MicroStrategy offers advanced data visualizations, robust analytical depth, and powerful data mining functionalities.

Room for Improvement: Board could enhance its advanced analytics capabilities, offer more customizable reporting options, and improve scalability. MicroStrategy has room for improvement in user-friendliness, simplifying deployment procedures, and reducing dependency on IT for basic functions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Board provides straightforward deployment with excellent customer support, ensuring smooth implementation. MicroStrategy's deployment is more complex but compensated by detailed documentation and support.

Pricing and ROI: Board offers lower setup costs and good ROI, appealing to small and medium-sized enterprises. MicroStrategy justifies its higher cost with extensive capabilities that provide significant ROI, appealing to organizations requiring deep analytical solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Board vs. MicroStrategy Report (Updated: January 2025).

Board vs. MicroStrategy

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Board

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

23rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Reporting (20th)

MicroStrategy

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

159

Ranking in other categories

Embedded BI (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Board is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.5%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Wiboon Thabsuwan

Senior Consultant at IMD Company Limited

Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features

I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

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Harjinder-Singh

Data engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Offers a simplified attribute and maze-creation process but lacks a thriving community

The solution provider should take some initiatives to grow the MicroStrategy community because, presently, it's quite small, and I wasn't able to find a solution to my problem by searching in the community. MicroStrategy can offer user-friendly training through platforms such as YouTube. Recently, at our company, the features we were able to utilize in the developer tool were not there in the workstation; such issues can be resolved through training videos or learning content distribution from MicroStrategy. The solution provider is presently promoting the workstation on the cloud instead of the developer tool, so there should be relevant resources for learning about the product. MicroStrategy is also working on integrating AI technology into its product. The object migration process from one environment to another using the solution is somewhat complex. It involves package creation, dependency, and transportation. But the migration process is rather simpler in OBIEE, where reports need to be archived in one system and unarchived in another, for example, from Dev to SID.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The drill down is good for people who have that high level view, because they can do some analysis based on it."

"we are able to easily export data. When directors need financial information, we can go in the system and export the data, then send it out so they have it ready and available. If they are not in the office, we can email it to them. In addition, all the managers are now more on top of their expenses and their budget."

"The ease of being able to get the data into BOARD is what makes it nice for people with a semi-IT background."

"Primary valuable features are its flexibility and versatility and, obviously, functionality goes along with that. Plus, it does that at a small footprint in the file servers, and does it very efficiently."

"I think it's flexible. I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value."

"Now, we have only one version of the truth."

"What is very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD."

"All staff can now see their relevant scorecards online."

More Board pros

"The implementation was fairly straightforward."

"Reports are very easy to create. It takes a very short amount of time to build a report, which is very useful."

"It scales well. It used to have only a max of four I-servers, but I think recently, somewhere in version 10, they doubled that, so you can have eight I-servers now."

"I like that they're trying to incorporate Developer into Workstation and Desktop into Workstation, so you get the all-in-one encompassing, highly technical Developer Workstation where you can do the VI, you can do the Dossier."

"Getting more data to people more quickly. Providing more flexibility for how they use the data."

"It keeps BI in the hands of everyone, rather than a developer or an analyst."

"It's a stand-alone mobile development app that you don't even have to do business intelligence on. You can just use it to build apps."

"It is easy to use and visually very appealing. One thing that sets it apart is that it has got a great ETL tool. As compared to some of the other solutions, it is much easier to process data from other applications in MicroStrategy. That's why we prefer using it."

More MicroStrategy pros

Cons

"I'd like to see a more passive report user for enterprise report writers that aren't particularly technical."

"It would be nice to see truly transferable processes from model to model, as well as a method of building repetitive processes."

"We can't delete entities and cubes in Boards because it interrupts our whole data model."

"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."

"The one thing that I think we would like to see in terms of improvement of the application is the ability to print. It's fantastic to have all of these graphic visualization of data, but we're not able to very easily just print... From my perspective, if you can have a little "print" button and then you just click it and it would produce what's on the screen, that would be very helpful."

"One of the things that I would like to see is the ability to have a rule directly referenced on the cubes."

"Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules."

"The initial setup was very complex for us."

More Board cons

"I would like to see the enterprise version available in a demo or as a trial version."

"It is performing well, but sometimes we have complex requirements and the performance decreases, and then we have to find another way to make it perform again. That is what you encounter when use the project, but that's inevitable because if we would have used another product, we would've had the same thing."

"The problem is the way that their metrics are designed. It can be difficult to understand what you're actually looking at. Then when you're comparing a document against the VI, you can't actually do that properly. So there are components, and there is a huge learning curve in the Enterprise Manager space. I think it would benefit them greatly if they were to exercise a significant amount of research and development in that space."

"It is actually pretty complicated to use. It is complicated enough that user adaptation is sometimes difficult. We developed more experts rather than people using it."

"Scalability is something which will need to be improved when it goes to a bigger audience."

"We would really like to see MicroStrategy have some support teams based more in Europe, because for now it seems that there is one person for the whole CE region. That is not exactly what we would like to see. We do know that MicroStrategy supports most places, either in the US or India, but those are different time zones, people, and cultures."

"You can now do data blending at the document level and data blending allows you to show results from different data sets in one grid, so to speak. I want to be able to create a data set that can receive data from multiple cubes, have it in one data set, and then bring it to the document, because then I can reuse it for other documents. Now, I have to do it in a document and then it's less reusable, because if I want to share that functionality, I have to copy the document, strip a lot of things, and then work on that basic element that I've built in that document."

"MicroStrategy needs to do some more development to make the platform easier to use. It's a complicated platform that requires a lot of skill to effectively utilize. So they could work on reducing the complexity to make it more accessible for a broader community of people."

More MicroStrategy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."

"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."

"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."

"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."

"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."

"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."

"I am unsure what the licensing costs are for this solution however, development costs are around $100,000 per year."

"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."

"There is no subscription, I am using the free version."

"Pricing, in general, is high. With Power BI, you get mobile with the license, whereas with MicroStrategy, you have to purchase mobile for extra."

"For larger businesses, the pricing is logical."

"The licensing is a bit high per user."

"The price was good. We have had great support along the way."

More MicroStrategy pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user6330

Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

May 2, 2013

MicroStrategy vs. Tableau

After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

11%

Retailer

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?

We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...

What do you like most about Board?

All the reports are prepared automatically.

What needs improvement with Board?

Some of my company's customers are interested to see the predictive analytics part of the tool. Some customers would like to leverage or prioritize predictive analytics as the main feature, but som...

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?

The stability of the product is good.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?

For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.

What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?

There is a need to improve the automatic generation of metrics in MicroStrategy, as currently everything must be done manually. Additionally, the hierarchy creation process in MicroStrategy could b...

SAP Analytics Cloud vs Board

Comparisons

Anaplan vs Board

Compared 29% of the time

Compared 13% of the time

Pigment vs Board

Compared 11% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Board

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs Board

Compared 10% of the time

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Tableau vs MicroStrategy

Compared 24% of the time

Microsoft Power BI vs MicroStrategy

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs MicroStrategy

Compared 8% of the time

IBM Cognos vs MicroStrategy

Compared 7% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs MicroStrategy

Compared 6% of the time

More MicroStrategy Competitors

Product Reports

Board

Download Board product report

Download MicroStrategy product report

Overview

BOARD International - headquartered in Switzerland - is a leading global provider of software for improving business results through better decision making. By unifying Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management into a single product, BOARD enables companies to achieve a shared vision of their performance across the entire organization, and thus a single version of the truth.

BOARD provides seamless solutions for • Reporting & Analysis • Budgeting, Planning & Forecasting • Profitability Modelling & Optimization • Simulation & What-if-Analysis • Scorecarding & Strategy Management • Financial Consolidation. Based on visual modelling, BOARD has enabled global companies to deploy BI and CPM applications without a single line of code in a fraction of the time and cost associated with traditional solutions.

Board International

Company: Founded in 1989, MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR) is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms. With direct operations in 26 countries worldwide and approximately 2,000 employees, our mission is to provide enterprise analytics, mobility, and security platforms that are flexible, powerful, scalable and user-friendly. To learn more, visit MicroStrategy online, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Product portfoilio:

MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise™ empowers leading organizations to analyze vast amounts of data and distribute actionable business insight throughout an enterprise through two distinct offerings: MicroStrategy Analytics™ and MicroStrategy Desktop™. MicroStrategy Analytics delivers reports and dashboards, and enables users to conduct ad hoc analysis and share insights anywhere, anytime, via mobile devices or the Web. It also combines the agility and productivity of self-service visual data discovery with the security, scalability, and governance features of enterprise-grade business intelligence. MicroStrategy Desktop is a standalone, on-premise visual data discovery tool designed to enable business users to analyze and understand their data. MicroStrategy Mobile™ enables organizations to rapidly build custom business applications that deliver analytics combined with transactions, multimedia, and custom workflows to mobile devices. MicroStrategy Secure Cloud™ combines all of the enterprise analytics, mobile, and security features in MicroStrategy 10 Secure Enterprise with powerful and scalable data integration, validation, and warehousing services — all delivered in an environment where organizations can deploy transformational analytics applications in minutes.

Usher, MicroStrategy’s breakthrough security solution, is a powerful mobile security platform designed to dematerialize traditional forms of identity verification (such as passwords, tokens, and physical badges) and replace them with a single mobile identity badge that is cryptographically linked to its owner’s smartphone and dynamically linked to an enterprise’s existing identity repositories. Usher works on standard Android and iOS smartphones, and also boasts an Apple Watch™ integration.

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.

Board vs. MicroStrategy