Microsoft Power BI Other Solutions Considered

ST
Operations & BI Analyst at American Hospital Dubai

No, I am diehard fan and accredited professional of Microsoft technologies, so I have no other thought.

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Deepak Damodarr - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Office Lead at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

I've always been part of different transformation programs where we were required to evaluate a BI tool, to meet the business requirements. Usually, Power BI ends up coming in the short list of products from a BI perspective, from a BI reporting perspective, apart from sometimes Tableau, and Qlik Sense. Sometimes, we also come across ThoughtSpot, Sisense, and Domo. These are some of the other tools which we have also, sometimes, shortlisted.

The differences have become very, very minimal between solutions. There are very few, minor differences between different tools. About four or five years back, there used to be drastic capability gaps between the different tools. Four or five years back, Tableau was the most mature, followed by Qlik Sense, followed by MicroStrategy, followed by a few other tools like SAP Analytics, or a few others. Today, Power BI is alongside Tableau, and Qlik Sense is in the top three. That's based on my experience of having worked on all these three platforms. Tableau, among the three, has the best UI, user interface. Qlik has the best performance, in terms of building complex data models. Power BI, however, is the easiest and most fun to use when it comes to getting somebody to use the tool from scratch. 

There are a few other benefits and strengths. Qlik Sense and Power BI, both come with built-in ETL which is data integration capabilities. They have very mature data integration capabilities, as compared to Tableau, whereas Tableau has very basic integration capabilities. You need to buy another ETL product for it to be able to do a similar level of data transformation as Qlik Sense, or Power BI.

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IO
Vice President at Shiluv

We didn't evaluate other options because we have had some past experience with other solutions. We knew that QlikView might be good, but you need to spend a couple of thousand dollars just to get started if you want to do something. We knew the costs, and the entry cost was much higher. So, we decided to go with Power BI. It is also integrated with Office and Excel, so it's very easy to go along and do some of the things that you can do in Excel. It is very easy to transition between them.

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IE
Inovation Manager at SoCalGas

Our company did evaluate Tableau and a couple of other tools. We ended up promoting Power BI for everyone because it was licensed and we were already using Office 365. It integrates well with all of our existing environments.

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CC Lee - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Scientist at PIC Group Inc.

The big difference between Tableau and Microsoft BI is the price tag which is much higher for Tableau. Tableau also provides a server for web publishing. It means you can easily share the visualization with people outside your company. In that sense, Power BI is more difficult. I also think Tableau may be more secure. 

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CR
Lead Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We looked at Qlik Sense. However, when you have the recurring cost every year on this other project, Qlik Sense didn't fit with it because you'd have to have Qlik Sense plus something else.

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AG
Digital Strategy Manager at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

We did evaluate Tableau for a moment, however, due to the existing license of Microsoft, the default choice was Power BI.

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BM
Assistant Manager - Forensic Data Analytics at Grant Thornton

I have used MicroStrategy. Power BI is more user-friendly. When we roll it across the business, it's easier for the users to use. MicroStrategy can handle large amounts of data.

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Biswajith Gopinathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analytics Specialist at GlaxoSmithKline

Another visualization tool I've heard of is Splunk, which helps to handle and visualize huge amounts of data. In the future, if Power BI is unable to handle this sort of streaming data, I may consider switching to Splunk. When I extract huge amounts of data with Denodo, Power BI becomes very slow—for example, it takes more time for the display to load. Right now, Power BI can handle a maximum of around one to four gigabytes, whereas Splunk can handle very large amounts of data. 

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TY
Technical Consultant at LinkDev

Tableau offers more flexibility in service compared to Microsoft Power BI. Microsoft Power BI is simple to use compared to Tableau.

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JM
BI Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I haven't had the opportunity to work with other tools as I found Power BI to be excellent. No one has specifically asked me to explore other tools.

However, I did purchase some tools on my own for personal learning purposes, particularly for tabular data. I may consider exploring other tools after June 15th, once I have completed my Microsoft exam DP-500 for Synapse.

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Ed Waslosky - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Supply Chain Management at Intricon

We didn't evaluate any other options. The use of Power BI just came with the program, and we installed it. We weren't looking for something different. It just was there for us to use.

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RU
Chief Manager at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

I explored Tableau, however, I found Power BI more stable.

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RD
Senior Manager.Marketing Strategy & Analysis. at a marketing services firm with 10,001+ employees

I have evaluated Tableau and D3.

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SK
Group DWH and BI Senior Manager at Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa

I've currently looked at MicroStrategy and am in the process of comparing a few other products.

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Aditya Pawar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at DTSQUARED

People use other tools in the market, like Tableau and Qlik Sense. They are good competitors.

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AK
OBIEE/ODI senior consultant at Kastech

The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools. It has good feasibility for fulfilling one's business needs. PowerBI is very strong in the market at the moment and we are creating visualization that works. It is a stable tool, as well. 

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Oscar Estorach - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Data-strategist and Director at Theworkshop.es

Oracle products are well-engineered but too heavy to accomplish small tasks. However, to use it for enterprise, you need to have a lot of knowledge about the different kinds of tools available. It has more flexibility but is more complex because it's designed for enterprise-level systems. Comparing this to Oracle which is at least 10 years old. Java is also old, but it's more structured. It's more proprietary.

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AM
Global Data Architecture and Data Science Director at FH

Tableau is a little bit expensive, although it is good if they want a very sophisticated solution. Both Tableau and QlikView are a little better in terms of the user interface.

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AS
Cognos Consultant at Surtel technologies

Typically, the solution architect is the one who decides which tool to use. However, we also were there and had a brainstorming session before choosing the tools. We did look at open-source options. At the time I prepared one checklist comparison between all the tools available in the market. Those included SAP, QlikView, and Tableau.

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YS
Head-IT/SAP at Barista Coffee Company Ltd.

I have evaluated other solutions.

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LeandroLucas - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Product at Bitz

I'm also aware of Power BI, which has better integration with third-party tools.

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RP
VP Cloud Platform

We've also evaluated Tableau and we use both right now.

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DM
Advisor to the Zambia Revenues Authority at GIZ
We have evaluated and completed a market analysis of Oracle and Tableau before choosing Microsoft BI. Oracle because already being used for the internal databases; Tableau because its facility of development and deployment. View full review »
JB
Consultor at Scitum

I evaluated some other tools but I think they had very different objectives. Power BI looked more generic and has an easy and quick way to present the information in different forms.

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it_user181869 - PeerSpot reviewer
Microsoft BI Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
  • MicroStrategy
  • TeraData
  • Informatica.
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SP
Practice Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

We evaluated Microsoft Azure.

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it_user829302 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of IT at a construction company with 10,001+ employees

Globally, we evaluated a number of products, including Salesforce's product, Microsoft won on the ground of simple functionally and cost. 

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TM
Assistant General Manager at ELEVATE Solutions Limited

We only looked at Microsoft. We did not consider other options. 

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AK
BI Analyst at Infosys Technology

I wasn't able to evaluate other options before choosing because it was already chosen by the customer.

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CB
Business Intelligence Developer at Kathmandu

We didn't as it's a company decision to look to change the BI system. 

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it_user194682 - PeerSpot reviewer
Database Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

No, I did not have an opportunity to do any evaluations.

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OZ
Business Intelligence Developer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

Before switching to Microsoft Power BI, I evaluated Tableau. It's a lot cheaper to use Power BI. The cost per user in Power BI is around $10 per month, while the cost per user for Tableau is a lot more expensive. That was a deciding factor for me. 

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SA
General Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

There are other options, however, it depends on the client's services. If clients have already made up their minds and they know what they want to go for, we simply help implement. We can give them more options of solutions to choose from. However, many prefer Microsoft as most of their other applications are already Microsoft. It makes sense to stay within the brand. 

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SS
Graduate Engineer at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We are also using MicroStrategy. I did not like the drillthrough feature in Power BI, but I liked it in MicroStrategy. The way visualization works, I found that the interactiveness of MicroStrategy was better than Power BI. Similarly to Power BI, you can comfortably use MicroStrategy if you have some idea of the data and basic visualization ideas. 

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SH
Project Manager at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Right now, I am looking to do a comparison between Tableau, Power BI, MicroStrategy, and Pyramid Analytics. I have not had a chance to really dig too deep into research.

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

We evaluated products such as Oracle, MySQL, and Postgres.

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BA
Technology Solutions Professional at OrchidaSoft

The solution has an edge over others in its quick implementation. It is also very helpful to consider Microsoft data platform on Azure. Doing a combination with Microsoft data plaform will give one a great edge over, say, Tableau. 

The combining of Power BI with Microsoft data platform on Azure provides one increased familiarity. We are talking about a great ecosystem. 

The solution is comparatively inferior to those offered by other companies in respect of the ETL and ELT as these relate to power and data cleansing. It is not the best. 

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SV
Senior Consultant at ICTPro

I recommend Tableau to customers for some things and Power BI for others. But, overall, you can use Power BI in more ways, it's cheaper, and it has a better pricing model.

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EH
Principal at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The short list was really only Tableau and Microsoft, and frequently clients have Microsoft products already installed so they have the security, the Active Directory, as well as the use of Excel, and the use of the collaboration tools like O365.

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MS
Chief Information Officer at Sensilab

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

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ST
New Build Completion & Commissioning at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I personally haven't evaluated or compared any other solutions. I don't have any knowledge in terms of how it compares to other options.

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FM
Senior Software Engineer - Business Intelligence at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

We tried Tableau. Although Tableau itself is a great product, we chose Power BI due to its pricing and Microsoft's focus to make it a better product.

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GM
Sales Director at Expeditus (Pty) Ltd

I also work with MicroStrategy. Out of the two, I would recommend MicroStrategy. They have what they call the Semantic Graph and Enterprise-Grade Semantic Graph. I think the technology is fantastic. However, doing business with MicroStrategy is fairly difficult and complex because of all processes involved, but the technology is probably the best in the market.

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SU
Head of Digitalization at a mining and metals company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We reviewed some other intelligence tools, and we just used them for trials.

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RA
Executive HR- Talent Acquisition at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I was able to evaluate Tableau.

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PH
System Specialist at a government with 201-500 employees

We have looked at, for example, Tableau and QlikUp. At the moment, Power BI just seems to fit our needs the best.

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SK
Partner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Comparing this solution to others such as Tableau and Microstrategy, this solution is probably better. However, I think overall Qlik Sense is best for me.

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ES
Founder & CEO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

I have evaluated other solutions before choosing Microsoft BI, such as Tableau. I have found that Tableau does not have a solution that can be embedded. The dashboard should be inside of our applications.

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SR
IT Specialist at a wholesaler/distributor with 1-10 employees

In the beginning, we were about to choose Pentaho because it is an open source suite. The problem is that beyond the enterprise version of Pentaho, it is more expensive than Microsoft. We would always need to rely on an expert of Pentaho, instead of finding solutions on the Internet, and that was the reason why we did not choose it.

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AL
CEO at a tech services company

Qlik Sense and QlikView are very good tools, very close to Power BI. Tableau is also a competitor but we haven't used it.

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it_user232830 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Systems Department at a government

We evaluated other open-source alternatives.

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GG
Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

The other departments in my company were using Power BI, so it would not make sense to get another solution when they already had Power BI in other parts of the organization.

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KC
Business Intelligence Architect at a tech services company

Yes, Tableau.

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it_user229761 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant | Architect at DHL

I played with Tableau. I see many similarities in Power BI to other products, so there is no reason to combine many different vendors/third parties to build such a complex BI solution.

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it_user876765 - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder with 1-10 employees

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

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

There are a lot of factors which we analyze and consider before we choose any product. In case we need a solution that we can develop, deploy quickly, and adapt to our business changes, Microsoft is the best candidate.

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PH
Partner at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

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.

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AB
CEO Gerente General at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Tableau is always one of the solutions we would like to evaluate further, and ClickView is another one.

It is my understanding that ClickView is less expensive, whereas Tableau is more expensive. Really, the reason why most companies go through Microsoft is if they have a Microsoft Business Suite or Office and it's all tied in the same ecosystem. That's perhaps the biggest benefit. It's all within the same ecosystem.

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EP
Managing Director at IDMdev Tech Solutions®

We were thinking of integrating Tableau instead of Microsoft BI, but the client chose Microsoft BI.

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it_user654243 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Developer at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

IBM Analytics. But the learning curve for IBM, that's what actually led us to pause on the implementation of the Cognos 10. Everything was pretty much difficult to do. Things that you could do in two clicks in Microsoft, you would be doing in five, ten clicks in IBM.

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MH
Data Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

I used Excel and Rapidminer in the past. But, I really like the BI product.

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MR
Senior Manager at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees

We did not evaluate other solutions before choosing Microsoft BI.

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DK
BI technical analyst at a government with 11-50 employees

I have evaluated Tableau.

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JC
Data Scientist at Packen SAS

Tableau.

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VC
Sr. Solution Architect at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Tableau is another option. 

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ND
Business Intelligence Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Our company focuses on Microsoft products, so we did not evaluate solutions by other vendors.

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it_user171975 - PeerSpot reviewer
MSBI Technology Architect/Developer at a pharma/biotech company with 51-200 employees

Not sure.

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SM
Associate Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I have evaluated Tableau and Qlik.

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it_user872265 - PeerSpot reviewer
Professor of Private International Law with 1,001-5,000 employees

On our short list, for future consideration: Oracle.

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it_user305997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

We looked at Tableau and Qlik; we are using Qlik.

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it_user289488 - PeerSpot reviewer
MSBI Technical Lead at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

We didn't do much evaluation as our dev teams experience is with Microsoft BI.

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GJ
Sr Dot Net Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

We are a Microsoft partner so we did not look at other solutions.

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it_user553431 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Tecnical Officer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The following products were evaluated:
  • QlikView
  • Dundas
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it_user324447 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

We looked at other solutions, namely Crystal Reports and Oracle BI Publisher.

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it_user221220 - PeerSpot reviewer
Analyst in XBRL Projects at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

We didn’t have another option.

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Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
April 2024
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: April 2024.
DOWNLOAD NOW
768,246 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power BI Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
DOWNLOAD NOW
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power BI Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
April 2024
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