Microsoft Power BI vs Plotly comparison

Microsoft and Plotly are both solutions in the Reporting category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while Plotly is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.7. Microsoft holds a 26.5% mindshare in RT, compared to Plotly’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Plotly users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and Plotly based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. Plotly Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Plotly

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of IBM Cognos is 4.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.5%, up from 25.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plotly is 1.1%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado

Deputy Director Operations Management Control at Mapfre

Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department

I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.

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Amol Rane

Solutions Architect M365 at Sogeti UK

Supports AI initiatives in terms of predictive analytics

The only issue is with permissions. Sometimes, despite granting granular permissions, dashboards are visible to people who shouldn't have access. It's difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. Sometimes dashboards are visible to stakeholders even though they should not have permission. It's a bit difficult to understand why the permissions slip out. The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance, and the permissions should be easier to understand. At this point, we have to go through a lot of details. It takes a lot of time to understand the permissions, so if there were better options available within the Power BI setup, it would be quite beneficial, especially for admins. So, there should be a more user-friendly dashboard appearance and easier-to-understand permissions.

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VenkateshJuloori

Founder & CEO at Ira

A flexible tool that offers an open-source version

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten. In my company, there are around five resources that use the product. My company's clients use the product a lot on a daily basis. I use the product twice a week in my company before I get any call from our clients.

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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 product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report."

"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."

"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."

"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."

"It is a stable product."

"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."

"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

More IBM Cognos pros

"Very intuitive and easy to use."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."

"It is low-cost and easy to deploy. It is fully-featured."

"The solution is easy to use and charts can be built quickly with the tools."

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

"It's a powerful platform."

"The user interface is easy to work with."

"It is useful for bringing visualization to data. It calculates counts, ratios, etc."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The level of interactivity that the product provides is valuable to me."

"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."

"When reviewing and interpreting data, I typically examine it in a tabular form to understand its structure. However, when explaining or presenting the findings to others, I often use visualization tools such as Plotly. These tools allow me to create visual representations of datasets."

Cons

"Chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't."

"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."

"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."

"It could have more options for themes."

"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."

"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."

"It would be good if the solution had conditional formatting."

"I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product."

More IBM Cognos cons

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface with Microsoft BI."

"Microsoft BI comes under pressure when there is a lot of data to be crunched. It gets slower and slower, and the functionality becomes a bit of a problem. The performance goes down with data being fed into the system. The infrastructure requirement also increases if you have to increase the performance. This is the area that can be improved in my opinion. Initially, the product is good, but over the years, when data gets accumulated, it becomes a problem unless the old data is kind of archived and is no longer shown on the visualization. It has a feature by using which a user can query for a report through simple questions to a bot. So, if I want to look for the customer share of revenue by geography, I just simply state that in the chatbot. If I wanted it in a pie chart, then you say, "Please show it to me in a pie chart." It comes out well for basic charts. This feature should be improvised more so that people can very quickly get customized reports on the go."

"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."

"There are some limitations in Power BI; you have to work in the Power BI base. However, if you want something not out-of-the-box and you want something custom, you have to do a lot of work."

"The solution's documentation needs improvement."

"The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating."

"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."

"There could be an integrated AI that can automatically analyze some of your data and highlight or provide suggestions. For example, when you are looking at a data set, it can suggest putting it into a certain type of chart so that you gain different insights or a trend line. You would almost have templates that it would recommend for you."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"The tool needs to improve its pie charts. Regarding Plotly, I find the online documentation somewhat challenging to navigate, especially when dealing with many parameters. Searching through thousands of parameters can be a tedious and less straightforward process. While the documentation is available online and serves its purpose, I often encounter difficulties in finding the information."

"I believe that the prices of the tool's paid services could be on the premium side, so the pricing model can be considered for improvement."

"The solution cannot be deployed on the website and shared with others through its own platform."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company uses IBM Cognos with another IBM product, so I think only one license is used."

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."

"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."

"On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight."

"The licensing costs are a little bit higher for IBM Cognos. I don't think there is any additional cost apart from the licensing charges."

"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."

"Pricing should be improved."

"I rate the product price as four or five on a scale from one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."

More IBM Cognos pricing and cost advice

"Compared to what's available on the market, I think we pay a fair price."

"I believe that the price is reasonable, at least for an enterprise solution."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."

"Make it low in cost. It is a no-brainer!"

"It is part of our Office 365 license."

"They have a free Power BI Desktop version, but it has limitations."

"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"It is an open-source tool. My company hasn't explored Plotly's premium services yet, but I believe the prices could be on the premium side."

"I only use the free tier of the product."

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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

Educational Organization

56%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Educational Organization

41%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

14%

University

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cognos?

The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?

I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...

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 wou...

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 info...

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about Plotly?

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Plotly?

It is an open-source tool. My company hasn't explored Plotly's premium services yet, but I believe the prices are on ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Plotly?

I believe that the price of the tool's paid services is on the premium side, so the pricing model can be considered f...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs IBM Cognos

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs IBM Cognos

Compared 8% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs IBM Cognos

Compared 7% of the time

SAP Analytics Cloud vs IBM Cognos

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM Cognos Competitors

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 17% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

MicroStrategy vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Tableau vs Plotly

Compared 43% of the time

TIBCO Spotfire vs Plotly

Compared 14% of the time

More Plotly Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cognos

November 2024

Download IBM Cognos product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

November 2024

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

November 2024

Download Plotly product report

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics

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

No data available

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IBM

Microsoft

Plotly

Overview

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”

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.

Plotly creates leading open source tools for composing, editing, and sharing interactive data visualization via the Web.

Our collaboration servers (available in cloud or on premises) allow data scientists to showcase their work, make graphs without coding, and collaborate with business analysts, designers, executives, and clients.

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.

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

Google, Goji, VIT, Smpl Bio, U.S. Air Force, C12 Energy, New York University

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Plotly

October 2024

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. Plotly

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