Microsoft Power BI vs SAS Visual Analytics comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Power BI and SAS Visual Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two BI (Business Intelligence) Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Power BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics Report (Updated: January 2022).
763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It's easy to create reports and it's easy to download the data from the corresponding report.""I like how the Query Editor lets me manipulate the data, and the available visuals are good. You can do everything using the UI.""The drag and drop facility to easily change the data correctly is the most valuable feature. I am happy to see visualizations. It's easier to talk about and make people understand what is going on.""In my experience the scalability is good. You are able to increase users and add more data.""The solution is quite scalable.""Microsoft BI's dashboards are helpful.""What I have found valuable about Microsoft BI is its performance and ease of use. The interface is very simple and it is accessible to everyone. If someone is new to this type of solution it is straightforward to understand.""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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"Visual Analytics is very easy to use. I use Visual Analytics for all the typical use cases except text mining. I used it to analyze data and monitor statistics, not text mining. I also use it for data visualization as well as creating interactive dashboards and infographics.""Quick deployment to dashboards and analytics features (using SAS Visual Statistics and Enterprise Guide). Easy to create a simple forecast and discover business insights using segmentation tools.""It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective.""The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps with quality assurance processes.""I use Visual Analytics for enterprise reporting.""Simplifies report designs and quickly displays tables and graphs.""It's relatively simple to create basic dashboards and reports.""We've found the product to be stable and reliable."

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Cons
"Better mapping capabilities and easier administration access would be beneficial, especially for understanding who has viewed reports.""The formatting template could be improved.""The only challenge I have found is that they do not have a Mac version.""It would be better if they had some video tutorials. Most people from an Excel background may struggle with measures in Microsoft BI.""I have a little problem with Synapse Analytics because it's very new. It's a product that has many capabilities, but it is not very well developed. I have to see the list of permissions from one object. I can't do this in Synapse. I have to search on the web for a solution because I don't have the tool for it.""The solution could improve the extraction and transformation of data. For example, you transform the data and then send it to Microsoft BI without having to use your own API. We are only providing the API to Power BI, and then Power BI is doing the job.""It is not the right tool to do deeper analysis or predictions. When you have some data and you want to do some deep analysis, there is no feature to help you with this.""For someone who is new, I think that Power BI can be a little complicated."

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"The visualization should be better in SAS Visual Analytics. It is easy to use but when compared to other solutions it is lacking and the support is not very good.""It is not as mature as competitors such as Tableau and QlikView.""There is a need for coding when it comes to digital reporting which can be intimidating.""The reason we haven't rolled it out across the board is due to the fact that the licensing is so expensive.""There are a few little things that are predefined and can be done out of the box immediately. There is no business intelligence application that is predefined, which is something some customers or prospects would love to have. Small and mid-sized companies would struggle with it because they prefer something standard that has been predefined by somebody else.""In Brazil, there are few documents, courses, and other resources for studying and implementing the tool.""The licensing ends up being more expensive than other options.""The installation process can be a bit complex."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."
  • "MS BI comes with all the tools and it is, to the best of my knowledge, the most affordable solution."
  • "All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."
  • "I would advise that Microsoft BI products are rightly priced and the licensing is easy to follow and to fulfill."
  • "Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? ​"
  • "Make it low in cost. It is a no-brainer!"
  • "Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost."
  • "Paid for itself in the first month."
  • More Microsoft Power BI Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Licensing is simple."
  • "$10,000 per annum for an enterprise license."
  • "The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
  • "Visual Analytics is expensive for a small company like mine. You also need to deploy it on a server or cloud, so you pay for the license as well as the cost of the cloud or the server that you will deploy on."
  • "SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."
  • "It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
  • "It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
  • "The product is expensive."
  • More SAS Visual Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The most solution's notable aspect, in my view, is the ability to integrate various data sources and harness advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This helps with… more »
    Top Answer:The product is expensive and needs the integration of more languages.
    Ranking
    Views
    35,424
    Comparisons
    29,814
    Reviews
    19
    Average Words per Review
    555
    Rating
    8.1
    7th
    out of 70 in Data Visualization
    Views
    3,574
    Comparisons
    2,854
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    393
    Rating
    8.5
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
    SAS BI
    Learn More
    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.

    SAS Visual Analytics is a data visualization tool that is used for reporting, data exploration, and analytics. The solution enables users - even those without advanced analytical skills - to understand and examine patterns, trends, and relationships in data. SAS Visual Analytics makes it easy to create and share reports and dashboards that monitor business performance. By using the solution, users can handle, understand, and analyze their data in both past and present fields, as well as influence vital factors for future changes. SAS Visual Analytics is most suitable for larger companies with complex needs.

    SAS Visual Analytics Features

    SAS Visual Analytics has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Data
    • Interactive data discovery
    • Augmented analytics
    • Chat-enabled analytics
    • Sharing and collaboration
    • Visual analytics apps
    • Embedded insights
    • Location analytics
    • Security and administration
    • In-memory engine

    SAS Visual Analytics Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing SAS Visual Analytics. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Machine learning and natural language: SAS Visual Analytics uses machine learning and natural language explanations to find, visualize, and narrate stories and insights that are easy to understand and explain. This enables you to find out why something happened, examine all options, and uncover opportunities hidden deep in your data.
    • Easy and efficient reporting: With SAS Visual Analytics, you can create interactive reports and dashboards so you can quickly summarize key performance metrics and share them via the web and mobile devices.
    • Easy to use: SAS Visual Analytics was designed to be easy to use. Its easy-to-use predictive analytics enables even business analysts to assess possible outcomes, which also helps organizations make smarter, data-driven decisions.
    • Self-service data: Self-service data preparation gives users the ability to import their own data, join tables, create calculated columns, apply data quality functions, and more. In turn, the solution empowers users to access, combine, clean, and prepare their own data in an agile way, which helps facilitate faster, broader adoption of analytics for your entire organization.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the SAS Visual Analytics solution.

    A Senior Manager at a consultancy says, “The solution is very stable. The scalability is good. The usability is quite good. It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective.

    PeerSpot user Robert H., Co-owner at Hecht und Heck GmbH, comments, “What I really love about the software is that I have never struggled in implementing it for complex business requirements. It is good for highly sophisticated and specialized statistics in the areas that some people tend to call artificial intelligence. It is used for everything that involves visual presentation and analysis of highly sophisticated statistics for forecasting and other purposes.

    Andrea D., Chief Technical Officer at Value Partners, explains, “The best feature is that SAS is not a single BI tool. Rather, it is part of an ecosystem of tools, such as tools that help a user to develop artificial intelligence, algorithms, and so on. SAS is an ecosystem. It's an ecosystem of products. We've found the product to be stable and reliable. The scalability is good.”

    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
    Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Manufacturing Company13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization35%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Computer Software Company8%
    Government5%
    REVIEWERS
    Government21%
    Insurance Company16%
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Retailer5%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Government13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise41%
    Large Enterprise45%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise49%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise72%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Power BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics
    January 2022
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics and other solutions. Updated: January 2022.
    763,955 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Power BI is ranked 1st in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools with 22 reviews while SAS Visual Analytics is ranked 7th in Data Visualization with 9 reviews. Microsoft Power BI is rated 8.0, while SAS Visual Analytics is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft Power BI writes "User friendly, easy to set up and great for analyzing data". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAS Visual Analytics writes "Single environment for multiple phases saves us time, and has good visualizations". Microsoft Power BI is most compared with Tableau, Amazon QuickSight, KNIME, Domo and IBM Cognos, whereas SAS Visual Analytics is most compared with Tableau, Databricks, Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio, Dataiku Data Science Studio and SAS Enterprise Miner. See our Microsoft Power BI vs. SAS Visual Analytics report.

    We monitor all BI (Business Intelligence) Tools 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.