Adaptive Insights vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Workday and Microsoft are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0. Workday holds a 0.8% mindshare in RT, compared to Microsoft’s 23.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

1,484 Views
312 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 326 Microsoft Power BI reviews

22,361 Views
9,392 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

Microsoft Power BI

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and Microsoft Power BI are key competitors in the financial planning and analytics category. Microsoft Power BI holds a competitive advantage due to its extensive data analytics features and integration capabilities within the Microsoft ecosystem, notwithstanding pricing differences.

Features: Adaptive Insights integrates seamlessly with multiple financial systems, focusing on budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting. It supports instant consolidation, corporate structure updates, and integrates with MS Office for seamless reporting. Microsoft Power BI excels in data visualization and analytics, adeptly integrates with various data sources, and is user-friendly with features like Power Query and interactive dashboards.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could enhance its user interface for better navigation and expand its analytical functions beyond financial scenarios. It may also improve its integration with non-financial systems. Microsoft Power BI can further refine its user training resources, increase data handling efficiency especially with larger datasets, and enhance mobile capabilities for on-the-go reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI is easy to deploy, especially for organizations already utilizing Microsoft products, complemented by robust online support resources. Adaptive Insights, while offering a more bespoke deployment for financial advisory purposes, provides accessible support but lacks the quick integration benefits seen with Microsoft solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights generally requires a higher initial investment but offers a notable ROI thanks to its advanced financial management features. Microsoft Power BI, with its flexible pricing models starting as low as free for basic use and scaling to $20 per user for premium services, is an economical choice for businesses prioritizing dynamic data visualization without high upfront costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

18th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (9th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Data Visualization (15th), ESG Reporting Software (6th)

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

326

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 23.8%, down from 26.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	23.8%
Adaptive Insights	0.8%
Other	75.4%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

Read full review

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal

Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."

"Automated reporting."

"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."

"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."

"It's very stable."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"The most valuable feature is shareability, where we can publish work to the cloud and share it with team members."

"It offers a lot of information and is very flexible and interactive."

"It integrates with all of the Microsoft tools."

"The solution is not that difficult to install, although this will vary with the experience of the person responsible for its installation."

"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."

"The one feature most of our customers like is data visualization. When we were doing BI directly from SQL, most users found it challenging to create their own reports. Power BI has self-serve analytics that the end-users can do themselves. On most projects, people are primarily using data visualization and self-serve analytics."

"It's pretty easy to set up the product."

"It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."

"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."

"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."

"Better user interface (UI)."

"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."

"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."

"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."

"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."

"The Microsoft BI interface should be simpler and more user-friendly. I find it very difficult to move between their data sources and their analytics section."

"Microsoft BI’s integration and visualization could be improved."

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

"There are some connector-related issues in their MSBA solution."

"I would like to see a change in the premium capacity."

"When you go to the cloud, its licensing is not intuitive. It is a little bit complex. When you have to purchase a new license, it is difficult to understand on their website what exactly you need to pay and how you can group. It is something that is applicable to all Microsoft products. They're not always so simple and clear when it comes to licensing. Their support can also be better in terms of explaining how they resolved an issue and what steps they took to resolve it. They are able to resolve the issue, but they can be better at explaining the approach they took to resolve the issue. It could have something in the direction of machine learning. It can have some kind of integration with machine learning where you can ask for some reports with natural language."

"We face multiple issues, and the connection drops off multiple times while integrating Microsoft Power BI with OAC and pulling in the data."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"It's affordable."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"They have a free Power BI Desktop version, but it has limitations."

"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"Its pricing is reasonable for the desktop stuff, but for enterprise-level, it is a little expensive."

"I very much recommend the free trial mode."

"In the beginning, the solution cost approximately $1,000 per month, we have a Microsoft startup subscription. There is a subscription pack for startups company which we are able to have for one year."

"While Power BI is generally a paid product, particularly for enterprise features and scalability, you can start with the free version and still achieve significant functionality."

"Its cost seems to be unreasonable if you have many users, but for a lesser number of users, it is reasonable. It is $10 per month. Clients easily accept this option, so they must think it is reasonable. It is quite cheap as compared to other tools, such as Tableau. One of the best things about this solution is that it has a trial version."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

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Feb 4, 2015

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	134
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?

It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?

12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?

The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...

See all answers

Seeking lightweight open source BI software

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...

See all answers

Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

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 po...

See all answers

How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

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 ...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

September 2025

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

September 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

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.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

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

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

September 2025

Free Report: Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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