Metabase vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Metabase and Microsoft are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Metabase is ranked #26 with an average rating of 7.7, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. Metabase holds a 0.8% mindshare in BIT, compared to Microsoft’s 21.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Metabase users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Metabase

Read 4 Metabase reviews

382 Views
307 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 319 Microsoft Power BI reviews

22,103 Views
17,369 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Metabase

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and Metabase compete in the business intelligence space. Power BI has an advantage in integration capabilities and analytics, while Metabase offers simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Microsoft Power BI offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, advanced AI-powered analytics, and comprehensive data visualization tools. Metabase is user-friendly with an easy query builder and supports multiple databases with minimal configuration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI requires complex deployment but has extensive support. Metabase is easier to deploy for smaller teams with community-driven support.

Pricing and ROI: Power BI requires a subscription, increasing with advanced plans; it offers high ROI for advanced needs. Metabase has minimal setup costs due to its open-source model, appealing to budget-conscious teams.

To learn more, read our detailed Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

March 2025

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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

Metabase

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

319

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 0.8%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.6%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Ibrahim Izz El-Deen

Data Engineer at USYTech

Modern analytics tool enhances user interactions with neat visualizations for improved decision-making

One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows, requires manual infrastructure management, which could be improved. Increased customization and visualization options in the open-source edition would be beneficial. Additionally, it might be helpful if more complex queries and stored procedures were supported.

Read full review

James Balbach

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements

Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used to query data into Metabase. I think it is very useful and handy for a novice."

"Metabase's key advantage is its modern approach to business intelligence."

"It is easy for a new user to learn the tool."

"Provides a full platform (database, ETL, reporting, analysis, and so on)"

"They find Power BI's data pull mechanism to be sufficient and cost-effective, especially considering the stability it provides. In comparison with other solutions, Power BI stands out as a fantastic choice. Therefore, I would definitely recommend sticking with the Pro license."

"Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators."

"It's quite flexible, and it's easy to create reports using this system. It is very graphic and very user friendly."

"Provides good data flow related to the container and control flow."

"The most valuable aspect of Microsoft Power BI in my field is the insights it provides from analyzing data. Sometimes, these insights go beyond what traditional analysis can reveal due to the large volume of data involved. In terms of improving our data analysis process, it starts with identifying data sources, followed by cleaning and filtering out irrelevant data. Then, we categorize and structure the data to achieve the best visualization and insights. Regarding Power BI's integration with other tools, although we haven't implemented it ourselves, it's known that Power BI can integrate with systems like SAP or ERP software, which could enhance our analytics capabilities if needed."

"What I like most is that I can do everything in Power BI that I can do in Excel."

"Power BI allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective."

"The tool must be made more user-friendly."

"I think there is a need to add a few more advanced visuals in the tool. There are a standard set of visuals in the tool which are available."

"The solution could provide more customization."

"I would like to be able to use more predicting data science features without having to use R."

"From a scalability and performance perspective and based on my understanding and feedback from end users, there's room for improvement in data processing, scaling up, and leveraging the cloud. That could be an enhancement area for me to look into."

"I think that the product would benefit by increasing the range of visuals and graphics readily available, as opposed to using a third party included as part of the product."

"The handling of the workspaces can be made more granular for user access rights. It can be managed a little bit better in terms of the connection to Active Directory so that we have more granular access rights. I am not sure if this is really possible or if we can solve it differently, but we need a lot of workspaces, and we are not sure how we can deal with it from the access rights perspective."

"It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well."

"If you look at the new tool, even though they promised that you could do data modeling, that you could do everything from the Power BI side, if your data is really large in volume, sometimes it doesn't work on the Power BI. More feature testing from their side would certainly help users."

"The maps in Power BI could be improved. You deal with many maps over the years, like maps of America and Saudi Arabia. The maps aren't detailed enough, and there aren't enough visualization tools. Whenever I want to use a map, I struggle with choosing the right visualization."

"Integrating it with the physics build model or the engineering model should be included."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is open-sourced."

"Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable."

"I would not say it is a cheap tool, but it's viable."

"The solution's pricing is medium."

"While Power BI is generally a paid product, particularly for enterprise features and scalability, you can start with the free version and still achieve significant functionality."

"The price for this solution is reasonable. However, there is an additional cost if you want to publish the dashboard privately."

"The pricing is good. It's pretty competitive because I have worked on a few other tools as well, and Power BI is on the cheaper side."

"Microsoft BI is not expensive. Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair."

"The cost of licensing depends on the number of people that are going to be using the reports, and we are satisfied with it at $10 per user."

"The price of Microsoft BI is reasonable. Other solutions such as SAP Cloud are more expensive."

"Its pricing is reasonable for the desktop stuff, but for enterprise-level, it is a little expensive."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

43%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Metabase?

Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Metabase?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Metabase?

I used Metabase for business intelligence and analytics in my organization. We connected Metabase to AWS Athena, allowing us to query and visualize data stored in S3 buckets.

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 24% of the time

Omni vs Metabase

Compared 20% of the time

Mode Analytics vs Metabase

Compared 14% of the time

Hex vs Metabase

Compared 12% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Metabase

Compared 9% of the time

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Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 14% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

March 2025

Download Metabase product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

March 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

No data available

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Overview

Metabase is a business intelligence tool designed for analyzing data with ease. It's known for its straightforward setup, making data visualization and exploration accessible to teams without coding expertise.

Metabase simplifies the process of deriving insights from data. It allows users to pose questions and instantly view results in the form of tables or charts. Its open-source nature offers flexibility for customization, paired with a clean and intuitive dashboard providing an efficient way to manage and share data insights. Users appreciate its ability to connect with multiple databases, enabling seamless data integration and analysis across platforms.

What are the valuable features?

Ad-hoc Querying: Enables non-technical users to create complex queries visually.
Dashboard Sharing: Facilitates easy sharing of insights through customizable dashboards.
Data Visualization: Supports various chart types for better data interpretation.
Open Source: Offers the flexibility to tailor features to specific business requirements.
Database Connectivity: Connects with numerous data sources to unify data analysis.

What are the benefits and ROI?

Cost Efficiency: Lowers costs by eliminating the need for costly proprietary solutions.
Increased Productivity: Saves time with easy setup and quick data interpretation.
Improved Decision-Making: Access to actionable insights enhances strategic decisions.
Flexibility: Customizable to meet evolving business data analysis needs.

Metabase implementation varies across industries such as tech, e-commerce, and healthcare, allowing firms to leverage analytics for performance optimization. Companies in tech appreciate seamless integration with SQL databases, while e-commerce benefits from sales trend analysis. Healthcare utilizes Metabase for patient data evaluation, aiding in informed healthcare service decisions.

Metabase

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Accenture Adidas Aetna AIG Airbus Alibaba Allstate Amazon American Express Aon AT&T Audi Bank of America BASF Bayer Berkshire Hathaway Boeing Coca-Cola Comcast Cisco Coca-Cola Dell Disney Emirates Equinix FedEx Ford GE Google H&M Home Depot Honda IBM Intel JPMorgan Chase Kellogg's Kroger L'Oréal McDonald's Merck MetLife Microsoft Nike Oracle P&G PepsiCo Procter & Gamble Prudential Financial SAP Siemens Snapchat Spotify Starbucks Target Toyota T-Mobile Unilever Visa Walmart WeWork World Bank Xerox

Buyer's Guide

Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

March 2025

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