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Board vs Knowage comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

Board
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
21st
Ranking in Reporting
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (7th)
Knowage
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
32nd
Ranking in Reporting
23rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Board is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Knowage is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Board1.7%
Knowage2.0%
Other96.3%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2645016 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Software Delivery at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Offers flexibility in design and saves time in budgeting and forecasting processes
I find Board to be simple and easy to use. It offers significant flexibility in designing solutions. The system overall is very useful, with many capabilities that provide flexibility. Our budgeting and forecasting processes support around three hundred twenty users who would otherwise rely on Excel, making Board invaluable for saving time.
AM
Margin Assurance Analyst at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable open source suite for modern business analytics with a useful replication feature
It would be better if more resources were available to help us learn how to use it. I wanted to use Knowage for a more extended period, but learning materials around the product were not really available and were not really straightforward. I've also seen inconsistencies between versions. For example, under the tools, especially in the cockpit, the way you create reports is now different. You will also find some configurations within a particular state, like a line chart, which differs from version to version. I think consistency is an essential feature in a product, especially for business intelligence products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What is very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD."
"The product is much easier to use, because it is geared towards more of a user-friendly force with the implementation."
"One of the reasons we chose Board is because the performance to cost ratio is high."
"The ability to create a data model and have it in testing within a week is fantastic."
"The dynamic selections on the screen and details by function are also valuable for inside the data view."
"Our clients have improved a lot in terms of coordination and communication. This has improved their internal performance."
"We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance."
"​Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data."
"In terms of ROI, much better than any other solution when it offer full fledged features in open source, planned to have direct contact with SpagoBI for better support."
"Unified interface, a lot of tools for BI, easy configuration, standalone SDK."
"The embedding feature is great."
"Being able to schedule necessary jobs needed for production jobs and programming run times"
"I would use SpagoBI if a company wants to use a free tool that has enough features."
"I am satisfied with the product in general given what the company invested in it, which was just our time."
"The most valuable features to us are application implementation, development, and analysis."
"Customer Service: Excellent."
 

Cons

"Data import error messages can be improved to provide more information on why a record failed to get imported."
"It would be huge in the future if BOARD offered a lot more graphs and presentations, and it was a lot easier to use."
"What could be better is the manual... nowadays, most people use a web client, but on the Board manual website, a lot of the information is only about the Windows client. If they could update that, it would be helpful."
"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."
"Some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel."
"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."
"It would be nice to be able to host your site and actually have BOARD be the driver of your site. So you could have anybody in your organization go to www.myorg.com, for example, and then go through what you allow them to go through. So rather than having to go through the application, to be able to go to actually host it to a website."
"I would like to see a better Web client, where the controls work the same way as in the Windows client. I do think that the focus is now on the Web, so it should be improved upon."
"Tomcat configuration was tricky in earlier versions."
"We are not happy with the poor graphic user interface. It looks a bit old and sometimes it is not properly user friendly."
"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"Many things need to be improved, most of all robustness."
"The support is very meager: We had to break our heads to figure out everything"
"The dashboard components could be better. They could do a lot more."
"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."
"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Construction Company
20%
University
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS generated, the focus is generally on compiling input from various sources and simu...
What needs improvement with Board?
Board's integration could be a bit more robust, but what we have works. If the design isn't right, the flexibility of Board can negatively impact performance.
What is your primary use case for Board?
Our organization primarily uses Board ( /products/board-reviews ) for budgeting and forecasting.
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SpagoBI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital
Find out what your peers are saying about Board vs. Knowage and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.