Microsoft Power BI vs XLCubed comparison

Microsoft and Fluence Technologies are both solutions in the Reporting category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9, while Fluence Technologies is ranked #29. Microsoft holds a 27.2% mindshare in RT, compared to Fluence Technologies’s 0.3% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Fluence Technologies users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 319 Microsoft Power BI reviews

14,384 Views
11,351 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

XLCubed

Read 2 XLCubed reviews

195 Views
139 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

XLCubed

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and XLCubed are products in the business intelligence space. Microsoft Power BI seems to have the upper hand with a comprehensive range of tools and integrations fitting various business needs.

Features: Microsoft Power BI includes extensive data visualization tools, seamless integration with Microsoft products, and scalable cloud services. XLCubed offers powerful Excel-based analytics, rich customization options, and the ability to handle complex datasets efficiently.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI has a straightforward deployment process with strong integration capabilities, supported by extensive documentation and community resources. XLCubed offers a tailored deployment experience beneficial for businesses needing in-depth analysis and customization, with personalized customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Power BI generally has a lower initial setup cost with flexible pricing plans catering to different business scales, contributing to a higher perceived ROI due to its broad capabilities. XLCubed, although more expensive upfront, provides high ROI for organizations focused on complex data analytics solutions.

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed

April 2025

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Helped 848,716 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 Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

319

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

XLCubed

Ranking in Reporting

29th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 27.2%, up from 25.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XLCubed is 0.3%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting

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.

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it_user1391316

Head of Finance Systems at NHS

Cost effective with great capability, performance, flexibility and visuals

In general, we're happy with the solution but we're always looking to see what else is out there. The thing we've struggled with is our partnership with Tagetik UK, the consultants, and the issue we had gaining access to consultants to develop the solution on our behalf. Thankfully we connected directly with XLCubed and now have a pretty close and good relationship with them so the earlier problem we had of actually getting resources to help us develop has now been solved. One of the things that we've been asking for and would like as an additional feature is a sort of benchmarking functionality. The ability to be able to benchmark, directly against the company digital corporate numbers. That said, there seems to be improved functionality within the latest release that could help us develop that further.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its connection to every database: Whatever and wherever it is."

"Microsoft BI is scalable."

"The best feature for me is Power Query. I know that probably sounds strange, but you can't do too much with visuals and reports if the backend stuff is horribly dirty and just bad. But for me, that is absolutely fantastic. I can load the data and do the transformation and be able to load it in a useful way. There are tons of connections, which is absolutely fantastic as well. It's been fairly easy, and it's intuitive."

"Many of my customers already use Microsoft products like Office 365, so I often propose Microsoft Power BI because it integrates well with all the standard Microsoft business tools. And it's the quickest tool to implement and start using daily."

"It is a pretty straightforward and flexible solution for data integration and modeling. It is a low-code solution. When you are doing data integration, you can use the GUI, which is very simple and straightforward. You can also do very intricate custom queries and model it at different levels. It is very easy to use and scalable."

"The solution is very easy to use."

"It is easy to use. It has got a desktop where people can develop their own dashboards. Basically, we have figured out how to connect finance contracts and all programs for the government agency. So, they can see everything in a dashboard. So, it is very easy to use from a technical standpoint of view."

"Two valuable most features are the ability to create columns and create measures."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"Great capability, performance, flexibility, visuals, and the solution is also very cost effective."

"I am looking forward to testing their full graphics that are available, as they looked very interesting in the demo."

Cons

"Sometimes in Power BI, the logic can be challenging to follow."

"SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is not user friendly."

"The performance of Microsoft BI could improve for large datasets and it would be beneficial to have more visualization features."

"We would like improvements made to the paginated reports so that it produces quality similarly to SSRS."

"The graphic interface could be better."

"Visualization systems are still relatively young."

"If I have to update data automatically, where I have to pin the gateway, it doesn't update. There is a scheduled refresh functionality so that it refreshes automatically, but I find it very hard to make it work."

"It should have more report outputs. They should expand the report outputs. Its documentation should also be better."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"There should be a better or an easier way to establish that connection to external sources."

"Would like the ability to be able to benchmark."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Both cost-wise and implementation-wise, this product is a good choice."

"It is reasonably priced."

"The premium capacity is very costly in respect of the market in Egypt, amounting to $5,000 monthly."

"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."

"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."

"We have a professional license for Microsoft BI and the price is fair."

"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."

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

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"14,000 Pounds per year for licensing."

"I am still using the two-week trial, but at first sight, the price is reasonable."

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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

41%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

No data available

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 ...

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Comparisons

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 14% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

No data available

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

April 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Reporting

April 2025

Download XLCubed 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

Produce insightful, interactive reports on, company-wide metrics for any business audience. Now all in Excel.
Pixel-perfect financial reporting with the skill sets you already have. No IT required.
Meet XLCubed: The data-connected Excel add-in for all your reporting needs.

Fluence Technologies

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

Marshalls Ltd, BP Exploration and Production, Thorntons, Ted Baker, Bristol-Myers, Rank Group, ING Bank Genve, Cargill Value Investment, Chloride Power, Auchan, Erste, UEFA, Novartis, Porsche Informatik, Raiffeisen Bank International

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed

April 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. XLCubed

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

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