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Microsoft Power BI vs Pyramid Analytics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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 BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
319
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Pyramid Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.6%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Pyramid Analytics is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Shyam Pendyala - PeerSpot reviewer
A comprehensive and user-friendly business intelligence for enhanced data insight
When developing multidimensional IMDS models in Pyramid Analytics, there is a need for better features to maintain and analyze data. The application currently lacks the ability to easily track the original physical table and field names, making it challenging to relate them to business names. It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields. Such features would simplify documentation, facilitate understanding of how calculations depend on physical fields and aid in explaining the development process to others. Having this lineage and easy-to-generate data dictionary would greatly enhance the usability of Pyramid Analytics for developers.

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 is shareability, where we can publish work to the cloud and share it with team members."
"Implementation is very quick and the solution is very user-friendly."
"It offers a lot of information and is very flexible and interactive."
"This is a self-service BI tool, so it doesn't require a huge amount of technical training, knowledge, or a background in BI in order to induct new people into it."
"One of the most valuable features of Power BI is the ease of use. It is comfortable and there is not a steep learning curve for this solution. If you have some idea of the data and basic visualization ideas, you can use this solution comfortably."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility, how many ways you can interrogate the data, and the the graphical visualization."
"Previously we used Excel, which took a long time - two or three weeks - to bring the data into a uniform format, whereas BI can do the same job in a day."
"We like the drag and drop interactability visualization. We really like that. It's user-friendly."
"It offers a wide range of analytics options including statistics and visualizations, as well as prediction capabilities, allowing users to make forecasts based on the latest data."
"Pyramid has a wide level of uses, as it's a complete ETL process and has a good level of connecting to a lot of data sources."
"The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries."
"The on-premise version has quite good scalability."
"I think the most valuable Pyramid Analytics feature is the solution's ability to drill down and dice in the loop. I think it is better than InExcel or Power BI."
"It seems quite performant in analyzing multi-dimensional information sets and presenting them."
"The features I find most valuable are 'Discover,' 'Formulate,' and 'Model.' I use them regularly to build logic and create reports for my job."
"It proved to be a very powerful and useful tool due to its breakdown capabilities, easy reporting features, flexibility in building custom calculations, and the ability to integrate them into reports."
 

Cons

"There are certain features that are only available in the cloud version. It would be beneficial if they could be brought down to the on-premise version without the necessity of using the enterprise SQL database, as that can be very costly. We need more cost-effective features that are available in the cloud to be accessible on-premise."
"I would like for there to be some type of user manual that shows steps on how to navigate the solution."
"I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions."
"SSMS & SSRS."
"Its setup and support should be improved. We would like to see more material for developers that provides clear explanations about how we can do data mining by using Microsoft BI. It would also be good if we can connect a feature to other customized machine learning solutions."
"Not having to login again after a mobile app upgrade. A simple login on mobile would be great."
"At times, I feel that the system needs improvement in single sign-on, especially for the on-premises side of the tool."
"I am a SAP user and I would like this tool to have more connectors - and to more easily connect to - the ERP or SAP environment."
"It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields."
"Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets."
"There is room for improvement in terms of the user interface, particularly when it comes to modifying connections between filters and visual components in a dashboard."
"There is room for improvement in terms of documentation and examples, especially for newcomers like me who are learning both business intelligence and Pyramid."
"Even though the solution has a functionality for every step, it's not so well- defined. That needs to be improved."
"I think the graphic number of charts and components could be higher, at least comparable to Brain Power BI."
"I find that this is quite a heavy, time-consuming tool for developers."
"The general amount of negative comments that I am hearing from my team makes me very wary."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a big advantage that Power BI has over Tableau. Power BI is three or four times cheaper than Tableau. For my personal use, I will definitely prefer a $20 monthly fee of Power BI rather than a $70 monthly fee of Tableau. If you pay altogether for Power BI, they give you a discount, whereas, with Tableau, there is no discount. There are three versions of Power BI: Free, Pro, and Premium. The Premium version comes with a lot of things. There is no extra or hidden fee. You pay every month, and the software is with you. If you upgrade, there will be some extra charges."
"Microsoft BI is not very cheap. A premium license costs roughly 5,000 euros a month."
"I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."
"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."
"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."
"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."
"The premium licensing is approximately $5,000 per month which is pretty expensive."
"Our license is paid yearly and we have found that we have to be careful not to over-extend our usage in order to avoid upgrading our capacity plan."
"The licensing cost is not excessively expensive, but it does increase with the addition of new features and modules."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Pyramid Analytics?
The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pyramid Analytics?
I find the price of Pyramid Analytics to be quite reasonable, especially when compared to other tools in the industry. It is a cost-effective choice, particularly for mid-sized or larger companies ...
What needs improvement with Pyramid Analytics?
Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets. While it is currently an in-memory tool, efforts are underway to enhance direct connections to source sys...
 

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
US Department of Veterans Affair, Volkswagen, Siemens, Blackboard, Hallmark, Orange, CDW, LA Fitness, Atelier GS, Memorial Healthcare, Acadia Insurance, BancoBic, Advanced Learning, Microsoft, Drake University
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Pyramid Analytics and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.