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Microsoft Power BI vs Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
331
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
Oracle Business Intelligenc...
Ranking in Reporting
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 14.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI14.1%
Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer1.1%
Other84.8%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.
Useful for business reports and helps to drill down accounting information
The tool's most valuable feature is table creation. One of the most important capabilities is the supplier assessment reports. These reports provide a balance during transactions, which is crucial for auditing. This feature is not standard in other ERP systems, making it highly valuable. The solution helps to drill down details from sources like payables and inventory, which the accounting department requires.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Allows business users with a mission to solve their own problems, without an IT person."
"I like the fact that Power BI lets me use Excel data; at least 90% of my state data is in Excel spreadsheets, so having the ability to just attach a spreadsheet as a data source is very, very important."
"There was a lot of manual work involved with Excel, whereas once we moved on to Microsoft Power BI, it was a cleaner dashboard and it was faster too."
"I have found the most valuable feature of this solution is the Natural Language tool."
"There is continual improvement year-over-year."
"Its scalability is really good, because Microsoft has put in a lot of effort."
"It has the most secured database that I have ever used, which is the most important part of Microsoft BI."
"BI provides us with strong computing power and calculations with quality visibility which helps with the whole pipeline."
"The tool's most valuable feature is table creation. One of the most important capabilities is the supplier assessment reports. These reports provide a balance during transactions, which is crucial for auditing."
"Discoverer has been very stable and we've had no real issues."
 

Cons

"The upgrade process could be improved."
"Solving things in DAX is not a nice approach to a user that has no knowledge of IT nor wants to get it."
"What would be nice is if they could respond to feature requests more quickly."
"There are some connector-related issues in their MSBA solution and there are certain features that Microsoft should include in the MSBA solution."
"I feel the modeling page should be simplified."
"For our reporting services, it would be good to have the capability for email-based subscriptions. I want to be able to change the sender dynamically, without having to rely on running through an exercise passage."
"The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files."
"Its licensing cost is very high."
"They need to try to develop reports to tie different tables together. Currently, to pull the data into one nice, neat report takes a more advanced technically minded person to develop."
"Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer needs to improve its performance and HTML reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It would be better if the price was cheaper."
"The price of the solution can be expensive if you want to synchronize your data more."
"Power BI comes with enterprise Microsoft licensing. So for the user, you don't have to pay, but you do have to pay a one-time cost."
"I have not had a customer suggest the solution is too expensive. There are licenses to use the solution."
"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."
"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
"Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer is more expensive than its alternatives. You need to pay additional costs for implementation."
report
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896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business136
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer?
Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer is more expensive than its alternatives. You need to pay additional costs for implementation.
What needs improvement with Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer?
Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer needs to improve its performance and HTML reports.
 

Also Known As

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Georg Fischer Central Plastics
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.