Metabase vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Metabase and Microsoft are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Metabase is ranked #27 with an average rating of 7.7, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. Metabase holds a 0.7% mindshare in BIT, compared to Microsoft’s 21.8% 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

340 Views
280 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 319 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,544 Views
18,579 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Metabase

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

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

Download the complete report

Helped 842,296 peers since 2012

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

27th

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 March 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.8%, down from 22.7% 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

"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."

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

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

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

"The best feature of this solution is the way you can plan, communicate, and visualize all the knowledge you extract from the data for the customers. I like the way you can show or visualize the information a client needs to answer a business question."

"The solution makes it easy for me to develop reports and publish them."

"It allows individuals to do the analysis themselves."

"The product can go easily go and extract data and it can put it into any format."

"The product's most valuable features are DAX functions for formulas and calculations."

"The stability is great and continues to get better and better."

"The solution has a good toggling feature."

"The fact that you can visualize items is great."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"Microsoft BI could improve by having better collaboration between developers working on the same dashboard. The developer platform is all done on a single laptop and it's difficult to have the same project files work. Two developers have to go back and forth. You have to have the project file on one developer's laptop making it difficult to co-develop."

"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."

"It should be easier to use when there are multiple system sources."

"I would like Microsoft to include some inbuilt machine learning so that it becomes point-and-click, rather than us developing models out of API and BI connecting to that and getting the results. That process gets in the way of continuity."

"Their technical support can be better. They normally take too long to escalate and resolve a case."

"They can improve it in terms of rule-based security. Currently, it has very limited rules."

"In an upcoming release, the solution could be simplified and have a more complete product package rather than a suite of products that we have to put together."

"The mobile app is very poor."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product is open-sourced."

"I rate the product pricing a ten."

"All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

"Microsoft BI is free for the personal edition, but there is also a paid-for professional version."

"Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money."

"Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level. They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it."

"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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

Amazon QuickSight vs Metabase

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 13% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Metabase

Compared 8% of the time

More Metabase Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 15% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

February 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

Free Report: Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI report.

See our list of best BI (Business Intelligence) Tools vendors.

We monitor all BI (Business Intelligence) Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.