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 8.0, while Sigma Computing is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.2. Microsoft holds a 14.5% mindshare in BIT, compared to Sigma Computing’s 1.6% 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 326 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,400 Views
14,274 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Sigma

Read 7 Sigma reviews

1,804 Views
1,461 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: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,497 peers since 2012

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

7.2

Number of Reviews

326

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (1st)

Sigma

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

16th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 14.5%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	14.5%
Sigma	1.6%
Other	83.9%

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

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal

Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Read full review

Russell Rothstein

CEO at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations

I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

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 stability is good."

"The solution's initial setup isn't too complicated."

"PowerBI – Self-service BI."

"Microsoft BI is better than most solutions we have. It's pretty easy to conduct analysis with it."

"It is very good, and it supports the Microsoft ecosystem, including Excel, etc."

"I like how the Query Editor lets me manipulate the data, and the available visuals are good. You can do everything using the UI."

"Management reporting solution that's very stable and scalable."

"Microsoft B's beneficial features are that it is a Microsoft product and it is well known by the staff here in the company. It suited the available skills."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"Sigma has excellent features, such as lookup tables where you can easily bring data that are not interrelated or at different granularity."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"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."

"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."

Cons

"It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well."

"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."

"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."

"The dashboards lack a user-friendly appearance."

"They are improving it all the time. What would be nice is if they could respond to feature requests more quickly. They can provide faster support for new features."

"I would like to see a more user-friendly interface with Microsoft BI."

"I think because I'm moving more into RPA, I'd definitely like to see integration across the RPA, Power BI, or Tableau platforms, because that integration could then make automation and mundane reporting much faster."

"I'm looking for something that can make it much easier to incorporate Power BI visuals or dashboards into, let's say, Power Apps – custom Power Apps or anything like that. The most important thing would be to seamlessly embed reports in applications. For example, to have buttons that can be navigated through multiple solutions – from Power Apps to Power BI to SharePoint – via links or something like that."

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 could have better reports."

"The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities. If they add those features in the near future, it would be very helpful for us to implement the same or do the data cleansing part in the Sigma tool itself."

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

"Sigma could have better reports."

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

"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."

"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

"If you purchase a license for a server, for users, or the professional version, you might not have to. The free version I think it can satisfy many customers' needs."

"Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? "

"Power BI's price is reasonable, especially if you can put it in some bigger package and use it with other products. The value of a solution doesn't just come from its features as a standalone product. The price should also reflect how easy it's to set up, clean data, and integrate with other solutions."

"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."

"The solution is affordable."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"The pricing for the solution is relatively higher compared to other alternatives."

"It is a cheap solution for our needs."

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

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	134
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	1

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 pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses. Most users have view...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Sigma?

As we are exploring multiple features in Sigma, I think Sigma can add more functionality. As Power BI gives multiple modeling options in its interface with the query editor, those features can be a...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 9% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Hex vs Sigma

Compared 31% of the time

Omni vs Sigma

Compared 16% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sigma

Compared 13% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Sigma

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Sigma

Compared 8% of the time

More Sigma Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

August 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Sigma

August 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

September 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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