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Microsoft Power BI pros and cons

Vendor: Microsoft

4.0 out of 5

328 reviews
93% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Microsoft Power BI offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, enabling self-service BI with robust data analytics using DAX and Power Query M. It excels in consolidating data and providing real-time insights, though it struggles with non-Microsoft integration and large volume lags. Rich visualization and reporting aid decision-making despite lacking customization compared to competitors. Licensing complexities and limitations in real-time analytics performance impact its cost-effectiveness and appeal to tech buyers.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Microsoft Power BI offers ease of deployment and integration with Microsoft SQL, SQL Server Analysis Services, and Office tools, allowing seamless compatibility.

It provides a comprehensive data platform and business intelligence ecosystem with a single license, enabling self-service BI without extensive technical training.

The tool excels in data integration, pooling data from varied systems into a consolidated warehouse, enhancing data management and insight generation.

Power BI's rich visualization and reporting capabilities facilitate user-defined charts and real-time data access, aiding in decision-making processes.

It supports powerful languages like DAX and Power Query M, enhancing data analytics capabilities, and integrates effectively with other Microsoft tools, offering a scalable and flexible environment.

CONS

There are limitations with real-time data integration which often lags, especially with large data volumes.

Licensing is complex and costly, often requiring a full license for accessing dashboards without building or collaborating.

Integration with non-Microsoft data sources and systems like Oracle Cloud is challenging and requires complex database replication processes.

Data visualization tools are seen to lack behind competitors like Tableau in terms of customization and visual appeal.

Real-time analytics and data refresh features are not as effective or frequent as needed, impacting performance.

Microsoft Power BI Pros review quotes

Head of Information Systems Department at a government

Jun 15, 2017

It provides easy integration with Office tools.

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Consultant MOA BI at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 15, 2017

MS SQL & SQL Server Analysis Services.

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GG

Gilberto Gutierrez

Presales Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 28, 2017

With the out-of-the-box Data Platform and Business Intelligence ecosystem, you get the entire platform with a single license.

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Microsoft Power BI

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Chief Tecnical Officer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 28, 2017

PowerBI – Self-service BI.

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KC

Khumbulani Chikura

Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company

Jul 10, 2017

Data integration enabled my organization to easily pool data from our varied system into one data warehouse.

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Principal Business Intelligence Analyst at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 13, 2017

SSRS and the Tabular server/Vertipaq engine/DAX are probably the two most valuable components.

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PH

Partner at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Sep 26, 2017

We can see that it's really improved the way end users can do their own graphs and pick their own fields of information and present that in a nice way.

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DD

Database Expert & BI Developer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 18, 2017

Provides a full platform (database, ETL, reporting, analysis, and so on)

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Project Manager with 51-200 employees

Feb 22, 2018

Helped identify bad data, enabling the corrections needed to the data for management.

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Senior Manager with 10,001+ employees

Feb 22, 2018

Ease of development and maintenance.

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Microsoft Power BI Cons review quotes

Head of Information Systems Department at a government

Jun 15, 2017

Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment.

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Consultant MOA BI at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 15, 2017

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

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GG

Gilberto Gutierrez

Presales Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Jun 28, 2017

It is getting better but still, there are opportunity areas in some aspects, especially the Windows OS dependency.

Read full review

Microsoft Power BI

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Power BI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.

882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Chief Tecnical Officer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jun 28, 2017

People without private emails cannot publish and, frankly, this doesn't allow for easy training.

Read full review

KC

Khumbulani Chikura

Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company

Jul 10, 2017

SSMS & SSRS.

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Principal Business Intelligence Analyst at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 13, 2017

The visualization aspect, while being the most visible to business users, also happens the be the weakest point in the entire Microsoft BI stack.

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PH

Partner at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Sep 26, 2017

The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit.

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DD

Database Expert & BI Developer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 18, 2017

I have to write scripts to query data for analyzing performance.

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Project Manager with 51-200 employees

Feb 22, 2018

It needs more graphics and overlays.

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Senior Manager with 10,001+ employees

Feb 22, 2018

Needs single sign-on.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 266)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

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Popular Comparisons

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Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

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