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MicroStrategy vs Yellowfin 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

MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
9th
Ranking in Embedded BI
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
160
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Yellowfin
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
42nd
Ranking in Embedded BI
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (30th), Data Visualization (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of MicroStrategy is 3.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Yellowfin is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AJIN S L - PeerSpot reviewer
Experience has shown effective features for analysis, but needs interface improvements
The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions. The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.
it_user86469 - PeerSpot reviewer
Very scalable design and easy to implement. It can reside alongside more complex enterprise systems.
I have been involved with the implementation of many BI products; many products are expensive, require complex and difficult implementations, and once installed it is only the start of a lengthy consulting engagement to get the installation to where the customer wants it to be. Yellowfin is the antithesis of this; it installs easily, the configuration is done quickly, and the user can come up to speed quickly (especially if they have used other BI products). As an implementer, this changes how we operate, because we can focus on providing the customer what they want, not just on technical wizardry to get the product operational.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I really like the visualizations. I like how you can put large data sets in there, then the user can quickly go through the data and drill down at various levels to understand things."
"Technical support has sent us to rapid response before, when we really needed them."
"We are using it for operations analysis and sales data analysis."
"Stability is great, especially with package deployments. It is very consistent and stable."
"It is one tool which you can find everything. ​"
"It's an open platform. That's also important. You can create your own data connectors. There's everything you can do with APIs. It's not closed like, perhaps, an SAP system might be."
"The ability to integrate with PPT is another plus. The platform's ability to write back data directly to the database is also good."
"We have been using it mostly for grid reports and its exporting features."
"It is a central source of up-to-date data and information."
"It is able to create information dashboards for various users' throughout."
"It reduces time to reproduce reports, provides easy access to organisational data, and has the ability to generate a wide range of reports and analysis."
 

Cons

"Lacks decent visualization and the process for creating new objects needs to be simplified."
"There is a need to improve the automatic generation of metrics in MicroStrategy, as currently everything must be done manually."
"There is room for improvement in data visualization."
"The solution's reports are not very flexible."
"It crashes multiple times for even small changes that I make on the fly in the dashboard. After doing all the necessary changes, the MicroStrategy desktop or even the web version kicks the users out, and all the changes are lost. This functionality is buggy in MicroStrategy. It is hard to keep track of all the changes that I have done before. I don't want to make copies of each change that I have made because I would end up creating a hundred dashboards. It is not feasible in a real environment. I haven't worked on integrating MicroStrategy with the cloud. I am not sure how it behaves in the cloud, but I have heard from a few of my friends that there are some hiccups when you kind of sync to the cloud through MicroStrategy."
"I prefer the capabilities of a single platform, but it does not always work. We are a huge company. Some areas do not use MicroStrategy, so you have to blend whatever systems they are using together to get the data points that you are looking for."
"I would like to see more integration."
"Something I would be interested in is more visualizations, because right now we use SDK to create some. If there were more out-of-the-box options, we would be happy with that."
"It needs more presentation/charting capabilities and integration with GIS."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​The solution is scalable. A little expensive perhaps, but it is scalable.​"
"We are waiting to switch to Microsoft Power BI because MicroStrategy is too costly."
"The pricing for MicroStrategy is always on the higher side. They should seriously start thinking about their pricing and licensing strategy."
"The solution’s licensing cost is expensive."
"All BI software vendors' list prices are high. It's about a price that fits the customer's needs. And I think MicroStrategy has some flexibility in its pricing model where we can easily demonstrate a total cost of ownership comparison against any of the other players."
"Now, the price is high."
"I am unsure what the licensing costs are for this solution however, development costs are around $100,000 per year."
"The price of MicroStrategy is reasonable."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
27%
Educational Organization
13%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about MicroStrategy?
The stability of the product is good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
For larger businesses, I think the pricing is logical, but for smaller companies, it can be a bit costly.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI. Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain as...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
NCS, Universitat Konstanz, AT&T, PG&E, SingTel, InternetStores
Find out what your peers are saying about MicroStrategy vs. Yellowfin and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.