Microsoft Power BI vs SAP Analytics Cloud comparison

Microsoft and SAP are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while SAP is ranked #5 with an average rating of 7.6. Microsoft holds a 21.4% mindshare in BIT, compared to SAP’s 4.8% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of SAP users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 319 Microsoft Power BI reviews

24,917 Views
19,745 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

SAP Analytics Cloud

Read 69 SAP Analytics Cloud reviews

7,314 Views
4,823 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

SAP Analytics Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and SAP Analytics Cloud compete in the business intelligence and analytics category. Based on the comparisons, Microsoft Power BI seems to have an upper hand due to its cost-effectiveness and integration with Microsoft Office Suite, appealing to small to medium enterprises, while SAP Analytics Cloud offers advanced features at a higher price point, suiting organizations already invested in SAP systems.

Features: Microsoft Power BI is renowned for its ease of use, fast performance, and a vast array of connectors for seamless integration. Its ability to quickly create dashboards and manipulate data is complemented by its integration with Microsoft Office Suite, making it a valuable tool for Excel users. SAP Analytics Cloud is noted for its advanced predictive analytics, strong integration with SAP products, and comprehensive data analysis capabilities. It provides excellent visualization features and user-friendliness, suitable for non-technical users.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Power BI could enhance its ability to handle big data, improve technical support, and expand features for advanced data manipulation and visualization, aligning more closely with competitors like Tableau. SAP Analytics Cloud faces challenges in integrating with non-SAP systems and its high pricing can be a barrier for users. Improving its AI capabilities and simplifying the technical complexity of data integration are areas for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI provides a straightforward deployment with robust support from a large user community and abundant online resources, though direct technical support might be more responsive. SAP Analytics Cloud offers seamless cloud-based deployment and benefits from strong integration within the SAP ecosystem. Its customer service is reliable, yet it might require additional exploration of community resources to support diverse customer needs.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Power BI is praised for its cost-effectiveness, offering a free desktop version and affordable licensing options, which often result in a high ROI due to time-saving and integration capabilities. SAP Analytics Cloud is positioned at a higher price point, justified by its advanced features and integrations, presenting a strong value proposition for organizations already invested in SAP tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Cloud Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Cloud

January 2025

Download the complete report

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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

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

Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network

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.

Read full review

RamasamyTelungupalayam

Product Manager - ERP Analytics and BI at Haleon

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.

Read full review

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."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"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."

More SAP Analytics Cloud pros

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."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"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."

More SAP Analytics Cloud cons

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."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"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."

More SAP Analytics Cloud pricing and cost advice

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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

43%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Educational Organization

26%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

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...

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 information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

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 fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Tableau vs SAP Analytics Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs SAP Analytics Cloud

Compared 17% of the time

IBM Planning Analytics vs SAP Analytics Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Anaplan vs SAP Analytics Cloud

Compared 9% of the time

Qlik Sense vs SAP Analytics Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

More SAP Analytics Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

SAP Analytics Cloud

January 2025

Download SAP Analytics Cloud product report

Also Known As

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

SAP BusinessObjects Cloud

Overview

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.

Microsoft

SAP Analytics Cloud is an all-in-one Software-as-a-Service business intelligence tool that provides the key functionalities of an analytics tool to SAP business users. This tool is built on HANA Business Intelligence (BI) platform, providing analytics from data collected from multiple sources, such as ERP, Microsoft SQL, and Salesforce, among other solutions.

You can use SAP Analytics Cloud to compile data and perform ad-hoc reporting and analysis for predictive planning. SAP Analytics Cloud collects and analyzes the raw data from transactional systems into intelligent insights that allow you to make better decisions.

SAP Analytics Cloud uses machine learning to clean up data, identify errors, and issues, and suggest optimization or filtering options. You can use the modeling feature in Analytics Cloud to create hierarchies and get deeper data insights.

The three core functions of SAP Analytics Cloud consist of Planning, Predictive Analysis, and Business Intelligence as a holistic SaaS solution that offers real-time analysis to business leaders.

SAP Analytics Cloud Capabilities

Data discovery
Machine learning
Integrated financial and business planning
Predictive analysis
Automated data cleansing
Custom widgets
Mobile extension
Role-based customization
Data exploration and visualization

SAP Analytics Cloud Key Features

Augmented analytics: SAP Analytics Cloud allows organizations to make the most of AI (Artificial Intelligence)-powered analytics through augmented analytics. It includes a Search to Insight feature that enables users not skilled or experienced in data science to access and use the platform.

These smart insight tools allow organizations to visualize business data without manual intervention. By combining multiple machine learning algorithms, SAP Analytics Cloud automates predictive analysis so that organizations can have significant insight into secured data.

Enterprise planning: As SAP Analytics Cloud is an all-in-one financial planning and analysis solution, organizations can use it to align strategies across all departments. It allows end-to-end, data-driven planning decisions via financial modeling, allocations, smart insights, and automated reporting.

The Zero-based budgeting feature allows for an effective resources allocation with built-in collaboration tools. The finance team can collaborate easily, create budget templates and make accurate decisions.

SAP Analytics Cloud Benefits

Real-time cloud insights: SAP Analytics Cloud makes it easy for users at every level to generate instant insights and improve data-driven decision-making. With SAP Analytics Cloud, you can have immediate and central access to all figures, diagrams, insights, and evaluations for every employee on every device and updated in real time.
Customizable dashboard: You can customize your dashboard according to your requirements. This customization means you can easily access all the relevant data on a single pane of vision tailored to your business.
Collaborative planning: As an all-in-one platform, SAP Analytics Cloud integrates the multiple aspects of a business into a single solution, including finance, HR, sales, and supply chain management.
Data on any device: You can integrate SAP Analytics Cloud with SAP S/4 HANA and deploy insights to Android and iOS devices. The SAP S/4 HANA integration also enables the rolling out of changes to multiple files and devices from a central location, so you can carry your business operations on the go over a secured cloud network.
In-memory technology: Since it is based on SAP HANA in-memory technology, SAP Analytics Cloud can process massive amounts of data in a short time.

Reviews from Real Users

Segun O., SAP HANA Developer at SOA PEOPLE, says that "The most valuable features are on the application side, where you can design applications into your analytics on the platform."

The Head of Finance Enterprise Application at a computer software company adds that "The visualization feature is the most valuable. SAP Analytics Cloud is also very easy to use."

"Its many features make it the best in the market," sums up a Consultor SAP Business Object, Sap Analytics Cloud at a tech services company.

SAP

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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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Cloud

January 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP Analytics Cloud

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