Microsoft Power BI Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Consultant at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees

Jul 18, 2013

My 30 tips for building a Microsoft BI solution, Part I: Tips 1-5

Having worked with Microsoft BI for more than a decade now here are the top 30 things I wished I knew before starting development of a solution. These are not general BI project recommendations such as “listen to the business” or “build incrementally” but specific lessons I have learned (more often than not the hard way) designing and implementing Microsoft based Business Intelligence solutions. So here are the first five:

#1: Have at least one SharePoint expert on the team.

The vast majority of front-end BI tools from Microsoft are integrated with SharePoint. In fact, some of them only exist in SharePoint (for instance PerformancePoint). This means that if you want to deliver Business Intelligence with a Microsoft solution, you will probably deliver a lot of it through SharePoint. And make no mistake: SharePoint is very complex. You have farms, site collections, lists, services, applications, security… the list goes on and on. To make matters worse you may have to integrate your solution with an already existing SharePoint portal. There is a reason there are professional SharePoint consultants around, so use them.

#2: Do not get too excited about Visio integration with Analysis Services.

Yes, you can query and visualize Analysis Services data in Visio. You may have seen the supply chain demo from Microsoft which looks really flashy. You might think about a hundred cool visualizations you could do. Before you spend any time on this or start designing your solution to utilize it, try out the feature. While its a great feature, it requires a lot of work to implement (at least for anything more than trivial). Also, it (currently) only supports some quite specific reporting scenarios (think decomposition trees).

#3: Carefully consider when to use Reporting Services.

Reporting Services is a great report authoring environment. It allows you to design and publish pixel perfect reports with lots of interactivity. It also provides valuable services such as caching, subscriptions and alerts. This comes at a cost though. The effort needed to create SSRS reports is quite high and needs a specialized skill set. This is no end user tool. There are also issues with certain data providers (especially Analysis Services). But if you need any combination of multiple report formats , high scalability (caching, scale-out), subscriptions or alerts, you should seriously consider Reporting Services.

#4: Use Nvarchar / unicode strings throughout the solution.

Unless you live in the US (and are pretty damn sure you will never have “international data”) use unicode. Granted, varchars are more efficient but you do not want to deal with collations / codepages. Ever. Remember this is not only an issue with the database engine but also with other services such as Integration Services.

#5: Check if it exists on codeplex.

Do not build anything before you have checked codeplex. Chances are someone has already done the same or something similar that can be tweaked. If you are skeptical of including “foreign” code in your solution (like me) use the codeplex code as a cheat-sheet and build your own based on it. There is a lot stuff there including SSAS stored procedures, SSIS components and frameworks and much more.

Disclosure: The company I work for is a Microsoft Partner
[Syndicated from www.peterkollerbi.wordpress.com]

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4014Developer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

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Jul 19, 2013

Hi Peter !

Let’s talk about the difficulties you have faced during your BI career;

#1: I do agree with you partially, that having a dedicated Share Point resource would be handy because you might be going to run into performance or security issues somewhere along the project, but my idea is to have a Single Share Point resource which can be share between multiple BI projects. Because from my experience what i have seen is, it’s not that much hard to configure the Performance Point Services, Power View & Reporting Services on Share Point. With some help BI consultant can do this on his own, and as a BI consultant one should take the ownership of the project and try to resolve issues on his own. This will give them more of a learning curve and hands on other front end tools. You can't always rely on someone else to fix the issues for you.

#2: I haven't yet to see any BI Consulting firm delivering their solutions through Microsoft Visio integration with SSAS. All I could say is Microsoft has done investment in lot of tools to see which tool become a real contender for replacing all other BI stack, or get most popular response from the market. This is more of a market strategy to see which product / tool gets more response.

#3: SSRS has been the greatest thing Microsoft has delivered for Reporting apart from PPS lately. I still feel there is still lot of areas where SSRS need to be improved, like SSRS don't have alters, or its very restricted when it comes to dynamic dashboard or interactive reporting. If you have seen PPS, as a BI Consultant i want to show my client how much interactive my BI Solution is. Still there are areas like you mentioned Subscription & caching are great from SSRS. Additionally SSRS is designed to keep in mind that developers will be using it for building reports. For End User Microsoft Excel is best they can have where they can slice & dice and with Power Pivot included there is a lot End User can do with SSAS Cube.

#4: Use navarchar / varchar will always be a debate between developers. It's more of a choice thing. But if you are developing a BI Solution which is going to be used across multiple regions, consider using nvarchar but keep in mind the overhead of extra storage that you will be paying as a developer.

#5: CodePlex is a great community, but most of the clients want things to be customized and be their own proprietary. This is what we are paid for as a BI Consultant to provide them solution which fulfills organization needs and you might agree every management has different needs. But still good idea to look on CodePlex and peer sites for reference.

When choosing between tools, there is no single tool which can meet all of your customer requirements, so keep in mind that you might be using some tool which you have rejected in your initial analysis, and believe me this will save you big time facing problem against clients, because one you communicate that we won't be using this tool, and then you go back and say now we are providing this particular report using the tool which you have discarded in your earlier review.

So my point is as a BI Consultant, one needs to be flexible, adaptive & responsive to be a successful BI Consultant.

Regards,
Hasham Niaz

reviewer1792206

Software developer

Mar 1, 2022

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Stable solution, but interface could be improved

Pros and Cons

"The stability is good."

"The interface could be improved."

What needs improvement?

The interface could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is good.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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Mediha Šiljić

Lead Data Engineer at Sensilab

Oct 27, 2021

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A powerful and easy-to-use platform with a lot of connectors

Pros and Cons

"The most valuable feature would be the abundance of connectors. It is also easy to use."

"It is easy enough. I don't see any real substantial improvements that are needed. It is great as it is, but its interface could be a bit modern."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature would be the abundance of connectors. It is also easy to use.

It is a very powerful platform for BI. It has everything that you want from BI.

What needs improvement?

It is easy enough. I don't see any real substantial improvements that are needed. It is great as it is, but its interface could be a bit modern.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for six years. I am using the online version. So, it is the latest one.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has improved over the years. There were problems a few years ago, but now, it is way better.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is fine. I had to reach technical support a few times, and they have been very good in the last two years.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Compared to others, I think it is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I tested a few other similar products before deciding on Power BI.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to just try it. I would rate it a 10 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer1650804

Senior Data Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 16, 2021

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Easy to use, quick report generating, and simple installation

Pros and Cons

"Microsoft BI was very helpful for me because I had a huge variety of connections. It is very convenient to build reports, even if somebody has no experience using BI tools or data visualizations. Additionally, the performance is very good when generating reports."

What is our primary use case?

I used Microsoft BI to develop reports and then deployed them into Microsoft BI web.

What is most valuable?

Microsoft BI was very helpful for me because I had a huge variety of connections. It is very convenient to build reports, even if somebody has no experience using BI tools or data visualizations. Additionally, the performance is very good when generating reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft BI for approximately three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution has been good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 100 people in my organization using the solution and they are mostly managers.

We used the solution on a daily basis, we were using it extensively.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Tableau previously.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very easy to complete and it took approximately 30 minutes.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation of the solution using two technicians.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Microsoft BI a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer1620273

Data Warehouse Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 10, 2021

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Easy to use and flexible but can't handle big data

Pros and Cons

"The product is easy to use and simple to navigate."

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

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution primarily for making dashboards. We are also doing analytics on Microsoft BI.

What is most valuable?

The solution is very stable.

The product is easy to use and simple to navigate.

The product has proven to be quite flexible.

It is quite scalable and it is doing the work that we want it to.

What needs improvement?

We'd like the solution to be more scalable.

We'd like the ability to manage it on the cloud, as a cloud-based solution. It is running out of business as it is not able to keep pace with the big data. Big data is not something that BI can support. It cannot be scaled that much.

The product doesn't support unstructured data. It doesn't support video, streaming, and strings of files. Microsoft is aware of this.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for seven to eight years at this point. It's been a while.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is quite scalable, although, in our case, as we are not on the cloud, we are facing some issues.

We have more than ten people using the solution currently.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've never reached out to technical support in the past. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't a part of the initial setup. That was something that was handled by another team. I can't speak to how long it took to deploy.

My understanding is that you only need two people to deploy the solution. Admins usually handle it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have any insights into the licensing and payments required.

What other advice do I have?

We are using the latest version of the solution. I'm not sure of the exact version number.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. For us, it has met our expectations and we enjoy its capabilities.

I'd recommend this product to other users and organizations.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user876765

Founder with 1-10 employees

Jun 5, 2018

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Users can access data much more easily than before, and it works with Excel

Pros and Cons

"Other people can access data much more easily than before. Its usability is the main advantage, people in the company are using it."
"With Power BI, you're able to store your data within spreadsheets and SharePoints, and then have Power BI pull the data out and report on it. So we actually saved a ton of money not needing to load the data into databases, which is a big prerequisite for many other reporting tools."

What is our primary use case?

It's primarily for reporting, and the performance has been very good.

How has it helped my organization?

Other people can access data much more easily than before. Its usability is the main advantage, people in the company are using it.

What is most valuable?

It works mostly with Excel, and it's a very good price.

What needs improvement?

The Report Server is pretty expensive on-premise. But as long companies are happy to use the cloud version, that's very cost effective.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good now; it was definitely really poor a year ago.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Because it's cloud-based, it's very scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't used tech support specifically for Power BI but, in general, for Office and Office 365, it has been very responsive.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before, we just had a whole bunch of spreadsheets lying around all over the place. So we really needed to get things tightened up but we weren't ready to invest in a database. But with Power BI, you're able to store your data within spreadsheets and SharePoints, and then have Power BI pull the data out and report on it. So we actually saved a ton of money not needing to load the data into databases, which is a big prerequisite for many other reporting tools.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are usability and support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The shortlist was, obviously, Tableau because they're in everyone's face and a couple of other smaller tools.

What other advice do I have?

I rate it a nine out of 10 because it's very cost-effective, so it's very accessible in that respect, and a lot of folks do use spreadsheets so it helps ease the transition from using just spreadsheets to a more mature reporting environment.

My advice is, speak to your users because, at the end of the day, if they don't use it, you've failed, which was the case with other reporting tools.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Brian RowlandSenior IT Project Manager at a local government with 501-1,000 employees

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Jul 18, 2018

The above review is consistent with the findings in my organisation.
Cloud hosting is the way to go to avoid expensive on premises support costs.

Peter Valbonesi

Project Manager with 51-200 employees

Feb 27, 2018

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It helped identify bad data

Pros and Cons

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

"It needs more graphics and overlays."
"It needs more analytic tools."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use cases for this solution are Health and Wellness claims and short-term and long-term disability data.

How has it helped my organization?

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

What is most valuable?

Ease of use
Dashboard
Easy access to databases and spreadsheets
Multi-table access

What needs improvement?

More graphics and overlays
More analytic tools
More interfaces to databases, especially multi-table management

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

PerHemström

Partner at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Sep 26, 2017

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Competitors' products have more functionality, though the self-service aspect is good

Pros and Cons

"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."

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

What is most valuable?

The self-service part.

How has it helped my organization?

We are a consultancy firm, helping our clients with billing and business intelligence solutions. 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.

What needs improvement?

The navigation. The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit. It's user friendly, but you would like to have it even more user friendly.

When you do selections in one tab in Report, and then you move to the next tab, then you have to do your selections again. So one tab as a global, central selection possibility would help.

If you compare to QlikView, there's still a lot of functionality that QlikView has that Power BI doesn't. For most companies, Power BI is good enough, especially if you consider the price tag it's an easy choice. But it still has some catching up to do to match the functionality in QlikView.

For how long have I used the solution?

Eight to 10 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It feels very stable. A bit slow sometimes when you change stuff and you want to refresh data and apply it to the data model in your queries. You want to apply that to your reports and dashboards and it can be a bit slow sometimes.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We don't have that experience yet. We still don't know how it is to deploy it in larger scales. So, that's my concern, but I haven't seen the scalability issues at our clients.

How are customer service and technical support?

No, not yet. There are a lot of self-training videos and such out there on the internet and on the Microsoft websites.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

QlikView and Qlik Sense. We felt demand in the market for Microsoft Power BI. Also, within my company we are selling services around Microsoft Dynamics, and Microsoft Power BI hooks very well into the other Microsoft products.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straightforward. Not much to set up. Cloud service and desktop client that you need to download and install, but if you have worked with other similar tools then you and know about that.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are constantly looking for what is hot in the market and this has really come up as a rising star on the BI market, so it was not so much of a question about it at all. Quite obvious.

What other advice do I have?

There are some limitations in regards to the navigation part.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.