Adaptive Insights vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Workday and Microsoft are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #24, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.0. Workday holds a 1.4% mindshare in RT, compared to Microsoft’s 17.3% 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

2,452 Views
515 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 327 Microsoft Power BI reviews

23,151 Views
9,260 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

February 2026

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Helped 881,733 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

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (4th), Data Visualization (20th), ESG Reporting Software (12th)

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

327

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 17.3%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI	17.3%
Adaptive Insights	1.4%
Other	81.3%

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

Livia Vasilescu

HR Manager at PPB

Use advanced data preparation features in analytics projects

Microsoft Power BI can be quite slow when working with data sources that aren't from a data warehouse or a more robust source or data artifact. When working with exports, which we do frequently, the load takes considerable time. This occurs with any BI tool, and it's related to our working methods due to limitations within the area. In HR, we typically use exports because we have numerous data sources. Ideally, Microsoft Power BI would have a no-code or low-code solution for the data sources to be built by the actual developers or development team. This would eliminate the need to work directly with exports. We would have a middle ground to create a warehouse without all the infrastructure, as building a warehouse within an organization can require substantial resources, both in time and personnel.

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

"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."

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

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

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

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

"It's very stable."

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

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

More Adaptive Insights pros

"Connectivity, installation, and configuration are pretty fast and seamless compared to Cognos."

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

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

"It gives you an edge if you are on the Microsoft platform. If you have been using Microsoft products for a long time or if you have the Microsoft infrastructure, this is the right tool for you. It has seamless integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other sources, and you get the best of the three things (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS) in one suite."

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

"Power BI pricing is generally considered more affordable than Tableau."

"Ease of development and maintenance."

"Constant collaboration is the most valuable. I can build a dashboard, and several co-workers can access this dashboard. We can share information that is important for decision-making. It is a very easy-to-deploy solution. It is compatible with a lot of data sources. It is also very stable and scalable. There is also a very good forum and a lot of help and online training."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

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

"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."

"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."

"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment."

"The solution could improve by simplifying the user interface and adding integration or compatibility with APA."

"I think that the solution is harder to use for people who are not experts in data."

"Microsoft BI typically connects to a database, often SQL Server, but it's also capable of connecting to multiple databases, pulling data from them, and allowing for data consolidation. You can then aggregate and generate dashboards and reports from this combined data. Personally, I wouldn't claim to have the expertise to suggest significant changes or additional features, as it functions quite well as is."

"The performance of Microsoft BI could improve for large datasets and it would be beneficial to have more visualization features."

"I would like to see integration with Excel."

"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."

"From a scalability and performance perspective and based on my understanding and feedback from end users, there's room for improvement in data processing, scaling up, and leveraging the cloud. That could be an enhancement area for me to look into."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

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

"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."

"It's affordable."

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

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

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

"Its pricing is great."

"Their price is good."

"Regarding cost, the initial investment wasn't too high, but ongoing licensing could add up."

"If you purchase a license for a server, for users, or the professional version, you might not have to. The free version I think it can satisfy many customers' needs."

"All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."

"I rate the product pricing a ten."

"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."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees

Feb 4, 2015

Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho

1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software 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	135
Midsize Enterprise	57
Large Enterprise	165

Questions from the Community

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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...

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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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Infor dEPM vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 9% of the time

Planful vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Qlik Sense vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 5% of the time

More Adaptive Insights Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 13% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 6% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 3% of the time

KNIME Business Hub vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

February 2026

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

January 2026

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

February 2026

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: February 2026.

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