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

"In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven."

"Microsoft BI allows us to connect to any database or any dataset."

"Microsoft BI is easy to use and to design. I found Microsoft BI a lot easier than Tableau."

"The solution is easy to use."

"I like Microsoft BI's drill-down feature and its overall ease of use."

"There is a lot of help and documentation on the Internet, so no special training is needed to use the source code."

"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to use. It's very useful for non-engineers and it is the ultimate solution for providing information and insights. Power BI is the best visualization tool I have ever worked with."

"The solution is quite scalable."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

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

"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."

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

"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 to see more AI capabilities in future releases. There's a strong interest in AI, including technologies like GPT, which facilitate real-time interactions."

"The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files."

"I would like to see integration with Excel."

"The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance."

"The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version."

"Power BI could be improved by implementing more options for data integration. Nowadays, the cloud takes care of scalability and security. As we all know, data sources are increasing, so we get data from a variety of streams. But if we could get the downstream data into the database and update the reports more easily, Power BI would be better."

"It needs more analytic tools."

"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

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

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

"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

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

"Paid for itself in the first month."

"As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution."

"They have a free Power BI Desktop version, but it has limitations."

"It is a cheap solution for our needs."

"The costs are small and the benefits are high."

"All of the licenses are on an annual basis, but Microsoft will amortize it to an extent. If it's five years, they'll include the possible interest they might have the following year. Ideally, their licensing scheme is an annual license, but they make it easier for some of our clients to take a five-year license but package everything inside for them to buy the license for five years."

"From a cost point of view, it's competitive in the enterprise space, although it's not as competitive when you add up all of the additional costs. Things like integrations cost extra and it's probably where Microsoft makes more of the money."

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

43%

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...

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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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