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Altair RapidMiner vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Altair RapidMiner
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (4th), Data Science Platforms (7th)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Altair RapidMiner is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 15.3%, down 19.2% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 21.4% mindshare, down 22.2% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Laurence Moseley - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good tutorials that make it easy to learn and use, with a powerful feature to compare machine learning algorithms
When I started using RapidMiner, I found it difficult to get it to read the metadata. I wanted to use, for example, a pivot table, and it did not have the variable or the attribute names in it. There were no values. It took a long while to figure out how to do that, although it tends to do it automatically nowadays. RapidMiner is not utterly intuitive for beginners. Sometimes people have trouble distinguishing between a file in their own file system and a repository entry, and they cannot find their data. This is an area where this solution could be improved. It would be helpful to have some tutorials on communicating with Python. I found it a bit difficult at times to figure out which particular variable, or attribute, is going where in Python. It is probably a simple thing to do but I haven't mastered it yet. I'd like them to do a video on that. There are a large number of videos that are usually well-produced, but I don't think that they have one on that. Essentially, I would like to see how to communicate from RapidMiner to Python and from Python to RapidMiner. One of the things I do a lot of is looking at questionnaires where people have used Likert-type scales. I don't recommend Likert-type scales, but if they're properly produced, which is a lot of hard work and it's not usually done, they're really powerful and you can do things like normalizing holes on the Likert scale. That's not the same as normalizing your data in RapidMiner. So, I would want to get results with these Likert scales, pass it through RapidMiner, do a normalization and pass back both the raw scores and the normalized scores and put in some rules, which will say if it's high on the raw score and on the normalized score and low on the standard deviation, then you can trust it.
Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Altair RapidMiner is easy to use and intuitive with no coding required, making it a low code tool."
"RapidMiner is a no-code machine learning tool. I can install it on my local machine and work with smaller datasets. It can also connect to databases, allowing me to build models directly on the data stored there. RapidMiner offers a wider range of operators than other tools like Dataiku, making it a better option for my needs."
"The data science, collaboration, and IDN are very, very strong."
"It is easy to use and has a huge community that I can rely on for help. Moreover, it is interactive."
"RapidMiner for Windows is an excellent graphical tool for data science."
"The documentation for this solution is very good, where each operator is explained with how to use it."
"One of the most valuable features is the built-in data tuning feature. Once the model is built, we often struggle to increase its accuracy, but RapidMiner allows us to fine-tune variables. For Example, when working on a project, we can adjust the number of nodes or the depth of trees to see how accuracy changes. This flexibility lets us achieve higher accuracy compared to traditional automated machine-learning models"
"What I like about RapidMiner is its all-in-one nature, which allows me to prepare, extract, transform, and load data within the same tool."
"Ability to extract data from a variety of sources and systems."
"Its ease of use is most valuable."
"There is also a chart store where we can download charts, which is extremely useful."
"We have found the product to be scalable."
"Provides good data flow related to the container and control flow."
"There are some great automation elements in the product."
"It is easy to use. It has got a desktop where people can develop their own dashboards. Basically, we have figured out how to connect finance contracts and all programs for the government agency. So, they can see everything in a dashboard. So, it is very easy to use from a technical standpoint of view."
"We have found the product very stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"In the Mexican or Latin American market, it's kind of pricey."
"About twenty-five percent of my problems involve image processing, and I found RapidMiner lacking in this domain. While we work on OCR and similar tasks, RapidMiner hasn't been as engaged in that field as other models. Some other models also support email processing, but RapidMiner doesn't offer this feature."
"The product must provide data-cleaning features."
"The biggest problem, not from a platform process, but from an avoidance process, is when you work in a heavily regulated environment, like banking and finance. Whenever you make a decision or there is an output, you need to bill it as an avoidance to the investigator or to the bank audit team. If you made decisions within this machine learning model, you need to explain why you did so. It would better if you could explain your decision in terms of delivery. However, this is an issue with all ML platforms. Many companies are working heavily in this area to help figure out how to make it more explainable to the business team or the regulator."
"The price of this solution should be improved."
"I would like to see more integration capabilities."
"The visual interface could use something like the-drag-and-drop features which other products already support. Some additional features can make RapidMiner a better tool and maybe more competitive."
"A great product but confusing in some way with regard to the user interface and integration with other tools."
"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing for the solution."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."
"My main complaint is that the error messages need to be made more clear. Currently, they are either too generic or outright misleading, and finding the real problem is like searching for a needle in a haystack."
"Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment."
"The graphic interface could be better."
"Microsoft needs to provide more drivers to connect other data sources in a native way."
"I believe the price should be degressive, and we should have a lower, or better unit price if we have more users."
"When I create measures, sometimes the error messages aren't clear. It makes me spend more time searching for solutions. I need the error messages to be more specific. So, I would like clearer error messages when creating measures."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not fully aware of RapidMiner's price because we had licenses provided, but from my analysis, it's moderately priced, not too high or too low. It's worth the investment."
"I used an educational license for this solution, which is available free of charge."
"For the university, the cost of the solution is free for the students and teachers."
"Although we don't pay licensing fees because it is being used within the university, my understanding is that the cost is between $5,000 and $10,000 USD per year."
"The client only has to pay the licensing costs. There are not any maintenance or hidden costs in addition to the license."
"Microsoft BI for desktop is free to use, and you can download and use it."
"They have a free Power BI Desktop version, but it has limitations."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"They are charging us by users in storage, and there is a license fee. My financial people handle all that. The client has already worked out a contract with Microsoft, and basically, we're getting government prices."
"Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level. They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it."
"Downloading Power BI Desktop is free."
"I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed."
"Power BI is cost-effective compared to other reporting tools."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
37%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about RapidMiner?
RapidMiner is a no-code machine learning tool. I can install it on my local machine and work with smaller datasets. It can also connect to databases, allowing me to build models directly on the dat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RapidMiner?
I started with a trial version. We are likely to purchase a license, which may offer additional features.
What needs improvement with RapidMiner?
Currently, I am unsure of all the AI features available in Altair RapidMiner, particularly advanced AI capabilities like neural networks and deep learning. It would be beneficial if the platform co...
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...
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...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PayPal, Deloitte, eBay, Cisco, Miele, Volkswagen
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