Microsoft Power BI vs Sigma comparison

Microsoft and Sigma Computing are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while Sigma Computing is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 21.4% mindshare in BIT, compared to Sigma Computing’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sigma Computing 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

Sigma

Read 4 Sigma reviews

1,421 Views
645 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Sigma

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and Sigma compete in the business intelligence solutions category. Sigma is viewed as having superior features, while Power BI leads with pricing and customer service.

Features: Microsoft Power BI provides comprehensive data visualization, robust report generation, and seamless integration into other Microsoft products. Sigma is strong in powerful analytics capabilities, efficient complex data modeling, and advanced analytics features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Power BI offers straightforward deployment with strong support and resources, backed by Microsoft's service infrastructure. Sigma, though requiring more initial configuration, offers focused support for technical queries.

Pricing and ROI: Power BI is noted for its competitive pricing and high ROI for small to mid-sized enterprises. Sigma's higher setup costs are reflective of its advanced features, offering a strong ROI for larger enterprises with complex data needs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

January 2025

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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)

Sigma

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

17th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (13th)

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 Sigma is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Q&A Highlights

Pambos Soteriades

Founder & CEO at PiSigma

Apr 29, 2023

Which solution is better for a company in the telecoms industry: Signa or Power BI?

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

See all answers

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

Erik Jones

Head of BI and Analytics at HyperScience

Streamlines reporting; like Excel on steroids

I think Sigma's dashboarding has room for improvement. They have a relatively limited number of visuals that you can use and sometimes I have a need for visualizations outside of the offerings that they have. I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma.

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

"The data manipulation and data cleaning tasks are handled in the backend by Power Query in Microsoft Power BI."

"It is a powerful tool that helps our data analysis processes."

"In the process of using data there is the Extract, Transform and Load (ETL). For extracting we are using another software, for transforming we are using our own coding in C#, and then we use Microsoft BI for loading the information. Microsoft BI displays information very well."

"I like the flexibility it offers."

"The one feature most of our customers like is data visualization. When we were doing BI directly from SQL, most users found it challenging to create their own reports. Power BI has self-serve analytics that the end-users can do themselves. On most projects, people are primarily using data visualization and self-serve analytics."

"My understanding is that the initial setup is pretty easy."

"Tech support is very helpful."

"It's a great tool for visualization data, and it's free for engineers."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."

"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."

"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."

"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."

Cons

"I would like for there to be some type of user manual that shows steps on how to navigate the solution."

"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."

"The initial installation is difficult."

"Technical support could be a bit better."

"The solution could be quicker at rendering data."

"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."

"The UI is the main improvement that could be made. Specifically, there is something called DAX, in Power BI, which is complicated compared to calculated fields used in Tableau."

"The solution could improve the mobile application design. It is difficult to use compared to the desktop version."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."

"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."

"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."

"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution came free, it was offered by Microsoft with our E3 license."

"Microsoft BI is not very cheap. A premium license costs roughly 5,000 euros a month."

"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."

"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."

"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."

"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."

"It is somewhere in the middle in terms of price. Licensing is quite clear."

"We have premium licenses, but you can use it for free. You can share the content with anyone else, so you can use it for free."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."

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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

Answers from the Community

Pambos Soteriades

Founder & CEO at PiSigma

Apr 29, 2023

Which solution is better for a company in the telecoms industry: Signa or Power BI?

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

See 2 answers

Ronald Chavez

Cloud Services at Supérate

Apr 29, 2023

The two are similar, it is cars but of different brands; I ask 1-) the users use Windows 2-) you have Office 365 3-) They will use Excel for the data. If you answer yes to the 3, better BI due to integration, and learning is easier for the user. If they are non-Microsoft databases, investigate on the provider's side, for example, SAP, IBM, etc. I have trained end users in Power BI. I know that Power BI has the majority of connectors. I hope my comment is helpful. Regards

Read full answer

Ronald Chavez

Cloud Services at Supérate

Apr 29, 2023

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

What do you like most about Sigma?

The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?

The viewer license is free, and the available licenses are for creators. The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year. Additionally, there is a platform fee of thirty thousa...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sigma?

I have used the product on the cloud and the browser and found no issues with it. The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made be...

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

Hex vs Sigma

Compared 41% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sigma

Compared 21% of the time

Tableau vs Sigma

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Sigma

Compared 6% of the time

Domo vs Sigma

Compared 5% of the time

More Sigma Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

February 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

January 2025

Download Sigma product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

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

Sigma is the next-generation of analytics for cloud data warehouses with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface that gives business experts the power to ask any question of their data no matter the query.

Sigma Computing

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

Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

January 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

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