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Microsoft Power BI vs SAP Analytics Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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)
SAP Analytics Cloud
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.4%, down from 22.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP Analytics Cloud is 4.8%, down from 5.9% 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.
RamasamyTelungupalayam - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamless integration, collaborative features, and enhances data exploration
There are several areas for improvement in SAP Analytics Cloud. Firstly, features available in SAP Lumira are missing in SAP Analytics Cloud. Secondly, the predictive analytics functions, although promising, are currently only suitable for Proof of Concepts (POCs) and not for industrial-scale use. Lastly, the pricing model for the planning functionality is quite high and presents an entry barrier.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found the quick reporting and the conductivity with all the data sources valuable."
"Power BI allows you to create user defined charts which is really useful."
"The sharing features are vital, especially the ability to share and test different shared dashboards."
"I've seen no issues with BI's stability."
"Technical support is quite good."
"It is easy to work with and very chic."
"The solution is very intuitive, you do not need to have too much programming knowledge to use it. Advanced Excel users can use it very easily."
"There are some great automation elements in the product."
"The visualization feature is the most valuable. SAP Analytics Cloud is also very easy to use."
"In the data warehouse, you're free to make changes. You can make everything text, meaning it's always a string. Even numbers appear as text, giving you the flexibility to work with all columns."
"It is a comprehensive BI solution that provides reporting, planning, and predictive analytics in one solution. You don't have to buy three different products. It is very flexible. It can be implemented very quickly. It has a lot of out-of-the-box scenarios that you can use for quick deployment."
"I have found that the feature to drag and drop widgets based on the data source, and import them into stories to be valuable. This way it helps the end user to create stories themselves."
"The most valuable features of SAP Analytics Cloud are its native integration with SAP data and the ability to leverage SAP artifacts."
"SAP is very scalable."
"The stories have really been helpful in looking at specific scenarios and analyzing trends over periods of time."
"There is a really nice insight feature that I enjoy using."
 

Cons

"The solution could use a faster speed on certain interactions and a refresh of the dashboards."
"Power BI shows reports on actual data, not metadata."
"Microsoft is behind IBM when it comes to security features."
"They asked you to pay if you want to synchronize more than eight times, you would have to go to a Power BI enterprise license, which is much more costly."
"From any improvement perspective, I want the product to be made available to users free of cost...The stability and scalability of the product can be better."
"If you have to pull multiple data sources performance is somewhat lacking."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"These licenses are in US dollars. With a long-term license, the client is unaffected when the exchange rate goes up. However, if the exchange rate goes down, you don't get refunded from the excess money you've paid. I guess that is a risk you take in business."
"The connection works only for importing data. Currently, there is no real-time integration between SAP Analytics Cloud and CRM. There are some features present in the classic but not in the optimized version. If I need to create something specific, I often have to switch the versions. It would be more convenient to have a single product that incorporates all the necessary features."
"The customizations need to be better."
"The solution should include other scripting languages as well, such as Python."
"Currently only one data modeler can work at a time."
"In the live connection model, we can't create calculated dimensions, however, in the import model we can create them."
"Connection and integration with other applications have a lot of restrictions at the moment."
"Live Data Models are very slow and the setup can be improved, with tools such as Cloud Connector being inbuilt into SAP Analytics Cloud. Likewise, we need to write application code from scratch, rather than tweaking existing code, as we might with Excel macros. Moreover, when using responsive pages, the widgets get adjusted according to the mobile screen. As a result, when I place two or three KPI tiles, they can only be viewed tile-by-tile. We want to see the full dashboard on the mobile screen and zoom in to click on a particular section of the dashboard and go further into that. But displaying tile-by-tile makes it very annoying and the upper management using this dashboard might not be aware there are any more tiles to view."
"Some algorithms are complex and can't be processed by just tagging the data and expecting results."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"My company needs to make monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"I believe that the price is reasonable, at least for an enterprise solution."
"We pay on a monthly basis which is approximately $10 per user on the Microsoft Power BI Pro license. At the moment we are still down at 400 users, but once we reach 500 users, we will move to the premium edition. The premium is $5,000 for unlimited users. Currently, with the 40 users, the cost is roughly $500."
"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
"For my primary use case, i.e. teaching students, the free version of Power BI is adequate."
"Setup is easy, and the cost is economical. You do sometimes need to pay additional costs for third party products which "plug-in" to Microsoft BI."
"Power BI premium is really expensive for our market. A lot of small and medium companies would like to purchase it, but they can't afford it."
"The price is competitive. There is a power user license and normal user license, but the normal user license is reasonable."
"The platform is about 50% more expensive than Power BI."
"Its licensing is on a monthly basis."
"Compute and storage features should be sold separately."
"SAP Analytics Cloud is expensive. The price is a big issue if you compare it with other solutions from different vendors."
"SAP pricing tends to be premium, so it is slightly higher."
"It is a bit expensive, but really worth it, especially if you are already using other SAP tools."
"Its pricing is okay as compared to 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
43%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Educational Organization
26%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

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 ...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
What do you like most about SAP Analytics Cloud?
In the data warehouse, you're free to make changes. You can make everything text, meaning it's always a string. Even numbers appear as text, giving you the flexibility to work with all columns.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Analytics Cloud?
The pricing model for SAP Analytics Cloud is quite competitive, but the cost for the planning functionality is high and can be a barrier to entry. The overall cost can be managed with better billin...
 

Also Known As

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

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Cloud and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.