We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."One of the most valuable features of Power BI is the ease of use. It is comfortable and there is not a steep learning curve for this solution. If you have some idea of the data and basic visualization ideas, you can use this solution comfortably."
"The solution is easy to use."
"There is a lot of help and documentation on the Internet, so no special training is needed to use the source code."
"The solution is easy to set up and implement."
"The advantages of Microsoft Power BI stem from the fact that it is really easy to use. The drag and drop facilities provided by the product are good."
"Considering that it's Microsoft, it can be integrated with the Power Platform, which is also Microsoft-based, like SharePoint, Power apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which is the most user-friendly."
"We have found the product to be scalable."
"The visualization and reporting are the most valuable features of this solution."
"We were able to embed the report builder within our internal proprietary systems, improving our reporting capabilities."
"I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards."
"The tool's valuable features are its drill-down feature, graphs, and charts."
"The solution's features are all just wrapped up in one nice easy package. I don't need a lot of toolsets to get everything I need done."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We can create quality reports in real time."
"It is a stable solution."
"I like Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services' automated reporting feature."
"The solution could use a faster speed on certain interactions and a refresh of the dashboards."
"The visual outlet or the visualization aspect can be improved because the settings piece is quite problematic. It requires a lot of time to set the visuals and check. It is quite fiddly to change all the settings and font sizes. It just needs better ability in terms of using templates or visualization templates to get the vision. Our users always benchmark based on the product, and they don't appreciate everything under the bonnet. The only rating is based on the actual reports in the settings for the dashboard. They should make it look a bit funky and a bit more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. It is quite a fiddly tool, but other than that, it is pretty slick. Because it is community-driven, the marketplace tends to be changing forever. You get the standard visualizations, and you've also got all other marketplace visualizations that require you to spend a bit more money and purchase things in the marketplace. With certain visualizations, there is no longevity. I had used certain visualizations, but they discontinued them, and I had to rebuild my reports, which is obviously very frustrating. There should be some sort of stabilization around how the marketplace visuals impact the users when they expire."
"We found out that you can't share a report with others unless you have an additional package. That caught us off guard. It came as a program that somebody could go in, build a report, and show it, but you can't share it without having additional licenses."
"Microsoft has made a lot of progress with Power BI in the past couple of years, but there is still some room for improvement. For example, Integration is one area they could work on. They are adding more integration with other Microsoft tools, but I would like it if they sped up the process."
"I think that the solution is harder to use for people who are not experts in data."
"I think that they can add more types of charts because the selection on the desktop version is limited."
"It's not really complicated, but I didn't find the things I was looking for. The ones I used to work with within Dash are more open, and there are more choices. But with Power BI, there are only limited types of plots that I can use. For example, when I wanted to put the plots in Power BI, there was no extendable space. You have a limited page where you can place a maximum of three plots in that, and you can't do more than that on a single page. You have to create a new page, a different page for that. That made it a bit annoying, and the filtering part is limited, with basic functions. If you want to make custom filtering or custom functions, you can't do that."
"Powerpoints are not available in the report server."
"It is not easy to integrate the product with other tools in the market."
"It doesn't have quite the flexibility of a Tableau or something like that. Many users are more comfortable with Tableau and I'm not quite sure why that is right now, but it seems to be the case."
"In this solution, the cost should be reduced for the enterprise edition."
"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services needs to improve performance."
"Tableau is more user-friendly because it doesn't need to do any extra programming. It has drag-and-drop functionality."
"We have had issues with the refresh interval since we have too many reports scheduled. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is also expensive."
"Technical support is in minor need of improvement so that they can solve problems in a more timely manner."
"It would be really nice to have better integration between the solution and Power BI."
More Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in Reporting with 297 reviews while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is ranked 8th in Reporting with 15 reviews. Microsoft Power BI is rated 8.0, while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Microsoft Power BI writes "A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services writes "Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered". Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and Oracle OBIEE, whereas Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is most compared with TIBCO Jaspersoft, Tableau, SAP Crystal Reports, Oracle OBIEE and IBM Cognos. See our Microsoft Power BI vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report.
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We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
