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Microsoft Power BI vs Pyramid Analytics vs Qlik Sense comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
Data Visualization
 

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.
Vishal_Goyal - PeerSpot reviewer
In-memory data storage boosts performance
The advantages compared to other BI tools show architectural differences. The main feature is that it keeps all the data in memory. It doesn't retrieve the data from data sources when I need it on the dashboard; instead, it quickly provides the desired data, making it very fast compared to other BI tools. The ROI is very high using Qlik Sense. It offers many benefits of BI. It is flexible from a developer's point of view, allowing me to accomplish many tasks compared to other BI tools. From an end-user perspective, it's convenient and performance-oriented, providing something meaningful from all the organization's data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In contrast to what we were using before I think that Power BI has given us more extensive results."
"The solution's initial setup isn't too complicated."
"It is easy to work with and very chic."
"I like data modeling. You can connect with your database, which is quite useful for me. It is a good tool if you have a large amount of data and you want to gather different data and interconnect it. The Power Query functionality is quite an interesting feature. If you have a query in Excel, you can also copy your query and run it in Power BI. Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated. You don't need to be a developer to be able to use it. I am not an IT guy, and it is quite easy to use for somebody who is not an IT person."
"The user experience is easy. Users get familiar with it quickly."
"It has greatly improved our reporting capabilities."
"It is quite easy to use and it helps me to achieve the projects that I've been assigned."
"I like how the Query Editor lets me manipulate the data, and the available visuals are good. You can do everything using the UI."
"The most valuable feature of Pyramid Analytics, outshining even top-tier platforms like Power BI, is its robust support for DAX queries."
"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."
"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."
"The features I find most valuable are 'Discover,' 'Formulate,' and 'Model.' I use them regularly to build logic and create reports for my job."
"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."
"It seems quite performant in analyzing multi-dimensional information sets and presenting them."
"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."
"The on-premise version has quite good scalability."
"The most valuable feature is the mobile platform."
"Qlik Sense provides features to manage and govern data, ensuring data security, accuracy, and regulation compliance."
"The UI is very easy to use, with drag and drop self-service analytics."
"The drag-and-drop dashboard builder is an intuitive interface for building dashboards from source reports."
"Qlik Sense provides better visualization."
"We can easily and quickly deploy new dashboards that reach a wide audience and any changes get reflected almost instantaneously for the users."
"Qlik was the first company to implement an in-memory associative analytics engine. This basically means that all data is loaded into memory, but it also means that instead of joining data together, the data is associated together. From the front end, from the UI point of view, data can be joined or included or excluded on the fly. It can be drilled down and drilled through and users can slice and dice it and that type of thing can be done from anywhere in the data to any other place in the data. It doesn't have to be predefined. It doesn't have to have hierarchies or anything like that."
"The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
 

Cons

"The DAX features need some improvement. It's not as easy as Excel. They need more DAX formulas."
"The mobile app is very poor."
"The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug."
"Things can slow down if you create too many pages."
"It should be more scalable for an enterprise-level implementation. When you deploy large data sets, the response has to be faster in Power BI. This is one thing that needs to be improved in it."
"One opportunity for improvement would be on the Power Query side. As a consultant, I know Power Query is not the main strength of Power BI. It is not where Power BI shines, but many customers use Power Query to do full ETL workloads for deliverable cookies."
"Creating dashboards could be easier."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface with Microsoft BI."
"The general amount of negative comments that I am hearing from my team makes me very wary."
"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."
"I think the graphic number of charts and components could be higher, at least comparable to Brain Power BI."
"It would be desirable to have the possibility to generate a data dictionary, detailing the original physical tables, renamed fields, and derived fields."
"Even though the solution has a functionality for every step, it's not so well- defined. That needs to be improved."
"There is room for improvement in terms of documentation and examples, especially for newcomers like me who are learning both business intelligence and Pyramid."
"I find that this is quite a heavy, time-consuming tool for developers."
"Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets."
"The reporting solution recently added to the latest Cloud version, since December or January, is not fully developed. The ability to use tabular reporting, like in dashboards, would be a great feature."
"Qlik dashboards are not friendly with end-users, but they have been enhancing this shorted in some recent releases and next releases hopefully."
"Currently, we are not very happy with the iPad or iPhone app because it is not working as we want."
"I would like to have the ability to better customize the visuals including changing fonts, sizing, colors, axes, and titles."
"Qlik has a fast learning curve due to great online training resources (Qlik continuous classroom), but those are lacking the advance features like building extensions and using the API."
"Needs more bookmarking and a data load screen."
"The on-demand report generation button in Qlik Sense currently doesn't work if NPrinting requires Okta verification, which our company uses."
"I am not really a fan of the set analysis. It's its own language that doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense to me at this point. I wish it were more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The costs are small and the benefits are high."
"In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx."
"It is reasonably priced."
"I used the tool's free version."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"It is somewhere in the middle in terms of price. Licensing is quite clear."
"Its licensing cost is very high. It is $20 per user, which is very high, but it is a good product, so you pay for it."
"The price of the solution can be expensive if you want to synchronize your data more."
"The licensing cost is not excessively expensive, but it does increase with the addition of new features and modules."
"Licensing: Review the named model and move towards a usage model (e.g., cores, memory, computers, API calls, etc.)."
"The solution is worth it."
"We have 20 licenses for Qlik Sense, and it is a special license that allows people in the whole company to use it over time. You buy this license and there are some minutes that can be used. For example, for the users that used only a few minutes in a month, we use this license. All the people have the ability to work with Qlik Sense. However, the number of licenses is not the number of users. The number of users that uses Qlik Sense is approximately 35 people."
"Start small with tokens. You can always buy more."
"You need to pay 5,000 Norwegian kroner per user. Microsoft Power BI is slightly more expensive than Qlik Sense."
"The costs can initially become quite high. Make sure you have a clear understanding of who will truly use the product as opposed to someone that will simply receive the end report."
"The new licensing model is much better."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
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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
15%
Government
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Educational Organization
60%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

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 wou...
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...
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 ...
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 suppo...
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...
What needs improvement with Pyramid Analytics?
Pyramid Analytics could improve by speeding up data refresh, especially for large datasets. While it is currently an ...
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 ...
What do you like most about Qlik Sense?
The most valuable features of Qlik Sense are its speed and seamless development of web technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qlik Sense?
Costs depend on the deal. They offer various licensing metrics based on our needs. For small or large organizations n...
 

Also Known As

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

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
Abbvie, Airbus, Barclays, BT Openreach, BMW, Daimler AG, HSBC, IKEA, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Mail Group, Sanofi, Siemens, Wendy'', Vodafone, Volvo
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