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Microsoft Power BI vs SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 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 BusinessObjects Busines...
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is 4.0%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

AS
 

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.
Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Fully integrated enterprise-level tool
The initial setup was not straightforward. Since it is a complete enterprise tool, it needs a certain level of expertise to set up the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. There are a lot of steps involved. You need to get the user accepted and you need to validate the data. So you need to understand the architecture of the application. I would rate the initial setup as moderate since it's not very easy or much difficult. For a small enterprise, the installation would take one day. You must ensure you are on a supported platform like Windows or Linux and if your database is not on the server but in a different zone of the network, you need to ensure connectivity. You must also ensure the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform supports your organization's browser. These are the major things that must be taken care of before the installation. Around 500 users are using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in my company. We are a team of around eight technical people involved in the deployment and maintenance of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you run a SAP shop with ECC, the best solution is the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform because it's tightly integrated. You'll get lots of offers from SAP when it comes to licensing. So there's an advantage. But if you are not a SAP shop, the licensing becomes a hindrance. So if you have SAP as a source, then I recommend people to go with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as it's a tool that works wonders. I have been working on POCs where we use SAP data for BI, which was a nightmare. So if you have ECC and SAP in the back end, go with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you have any other tools in the back end, then try to negotiate and see the use case.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Power BI has strong support from Microsoft. If you need help, they answer promptly. There are also several discussion groups where you can get information, like the product roadmap and any new things coming up."
"Most of the clients I am interacting with are looking towards Power BI because of the cost and simplicities. It provides an entire feature set and a complete solution. It has tight integration with Office 365, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Technology Stack, and datatypes like R and Python."
"The Microsoft Power BI app is very good. It's also very flexible."
"SSRS and the Tabular server/Vertipaq engine/DAX are probably the two most valuable components."
"The visuals are great and make everything look very professional. We can change the look and feel or manipulate the data according to our requirements. It's extremely flexible."
"The user experience is easy. Users get familiar with it quickly."
"The best thing about this solution is that it is very user friendly. It is interactive in terms of visualizations. It is very eye-catching, and it attracts users. There are a lot of options to visualize the data in different drafts and views. I have used different visualization tools, and I found Power BI to be more efficient in terms of performance, user-friendliness, and ease of use."
"We have found that the reporting and publishing are great."
"Through the use of Business Intelligence reporting and scheduling features, reports are generated and automatically sent according to a schedule. This has freed up countless hours spent performing the same tasks, month over month."
"It has been extremely valuable, to combine data from various data sources."
"To share a metadata service layer, you don't need to add a user or write a SQL query. Instead, you can present a raw database to your end user."
"This reporting and broadcasting solution has a lot of flexibilities and can connect to multiple source systems."
"I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution."
"It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly-complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools. Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA."
"The common metadata environment means that the entire organisation has the same definition of core measures rather than these being derived in spreadsheets or specific reports."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."
 

Cons

"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."
"We would like improvements made to the paginated reports so that it produces quality similarly to SSRS."
"The maps in Power BI could be improved. You deal with many maps over the years, like maps of America and Saudi Arabia. The maps aren't detailed enough, and there aren't enough visualization tools. Whenever I want to use a map, I struggle with choosing the right visualization."
"​It needs more analytic tools."
"Things can slow down if you create too many pages."
"A few features available in Tableau are not available in Power BI. For example. Tableau has the ability to make up the physical layer and all other stuff at runtime. In Power BI, we have to develop a proper physical layer to connect it. The limitation that we normally face is related to the direct query mode. When it comes to the direct query mode, most of the functionality is not working, which is an issue for us. We have to use the direct query mode frequently because the client needs real-time data. They should work on this limitation. There are a lot of other technical things that need to be improved. I am also following the Power BI platform and Microsoft Support Center platform on the web where users have put their requirements. Microsoft is also working on improving this solution. In every update, they add new features to this solution."
"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."
"Trend data and dashboards need improvement."
"More thorough testing of Service Packs before release."
"There should be more integration with other platforms."
"The combination of Lumira along with Design Studio merger last year still needs development from a visualization standpoint."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform should be made easier for the end-users and the performance could be improved."
"Currently, we can use Explore to do data discovering, but cannot generate charts."
"There is still a lot to be done on the mobile side to make Web Intelligence truly seamless between the desktop and mobile versions and I would like to see SAP pay a lot more attention to this."
"It would be good if they could integrate the possibility for end users to create end models for themselves that they can use, especially for site operators, and if they could provide the end user not only the self-service BI, but also the self-service analytics, based on a predefined model, the same way that Oracle did."
"The platform should be a bit more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The only other cost, besides the licensing fee, would be to cover support."
"The pricing for the solution is relatively higher compared to other alternatives."
"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
"The price of Microsoft BI is reasonable. Other solutions such as SAP Cloud are more expensive."
"My company needs to make monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money."
"Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"I have always found SAP BI to be expensive. It is expensive even when you compare SAP BI Cloud with Microsoft Power BI. Power BI is probably around $9.99 per month, and the cheapest SAP BI is around $20, which is double. In terms of price, Power BI is definitely a lot better. If you have budget issues, you may want to go for Power BI."
"It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
"We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

AS
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014
Your Collegue may want to look at Tableau.
2 out of 22 answers
it_user95520 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 28, 2014
Hi, have a look at www.corpeum.com The CorPeuM software combines the latest thinking in management practices, such as those found in The Balanced Scorecard and Six Sigma methodologies, with the latest developments in technology. CorPeuM is easily adapted to an organisations adopted management methodology and includes 'Best Practice' business templates, management workshops, and consultancy that re-writes the way performance management applications should be implemented. Unlike traditional management practices that involve financially focused annual budgets, monthly reports and quarterly forecasts, CorPeuM replaces these with a continuous, single management activity, driven by events, focused on the execution of strategy. CorPeuM possesses the attributes of a modern BI/CPM solution in that it is multidimensional in nature; is financially intelligent; can handle a mixture of financial and statistical measures; is multi-user where users are controlled in terms of their access and data manipulation capabilities; has named-based rules for generating analyses with integrity; and supports unlimited numbers of business dimensions, members and supporting structures.
it_user9168 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 28, 2014
When looking into a new Bi solution you need to consider a few things: 1. Is it a full stack solution? (front & Back end) 2. How much scripting & coding including sql you will need to create a report? 3. Does the solution supports the amounts of data you expecting in the new few years? 4. Does it support multi data sources ? I would suggest SiSense as the best platform that supports all the above and more. http://www.sisense.com Good Luck
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

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 ...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
The licensing cost for SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform can be significant due to its complexity. It is crucial for customers to carefully assess the value they expect to derive from the implementat...
 

Also Known As

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

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
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.