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IBM Planning Analytics 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

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (3rd)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
319
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 8.7%, down 9.2% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 21.6% mindshare, down 22.4% since last year.
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy
The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements
Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized."
"Planning Analytics' best features include automatic updates and slicing."
"IBM Planning Analytics is easy to use and deploy. It is quick to develop. The calculation machine is also very fast."
"Navigating through the data to make analysis is really quick."
"The scenario modeling capabilities are frequently used to create different scenarios, compare them, and see which action leads to which result."
"The ease of use is valuable. The fact that it's plugged into Excel spreadsheets is also valuable. It provides additional functionality where you can slice and dice the information in a way that you can't do with spreadsheets"
"All the different platforms are well integrated."
"The tool is flexible."
"Its seamless integration with Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Excel, is the most valuable."
"Power BI's integration with other tools is very good."
"I have found the quick reporting and the conductivity with all the data sources valuable."
"The interface is very fluid."
"Microsoft BI is scalable."
"There is a feature in Microsoft BI that allows JSON data to SQL on the dashboards effectively and quickly."
"The solution is easy to set up and implement."
"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."
 

Cons

"Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014. On a scale, I'd rate scalability at four, out of ten. It's difficult."
"The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects are used."
"It is a bit expensive, but it does the job."
"If we talk only about the TM1 engine, it's quite rich and possibly too rich, making it complex to perform simple tasks."
"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The new frontend Planning Analytics Workspace is not very good, it could be improved. I like the Planning Analytics functionality but it would be helpful if it could be more customizable. You can create a prediction and receive information but you cannot do feature engineering regarding the predictive models. If this was added it would be helpful."
"It's wonky, and not super user-friendly with Excel."
"It would have been better if the solution was not just a tool kit."
"Microsoft needs to provide more drivers to connect other data sources in a native way."
"The mobile app is very poor."
"The licensing needs improvement. There needs to be a middle option between Pro and Premium versions."
"It could have more of a hold on big data. Manipulating big data on this solution complicates things. This needs to be improved."
"Actionable insights could be better."
"Integrating it with the physics build model or the engineering model should be included."
"I believe there is room for improvement in terms of authentication and certain functionalities in Power BI. For instance, adjusting the width of columns is not easily done, as there is only an option to enable or disable automatic adjustment. This can be a significant drawback for clients who desire more flexibility."
"Maybe they can enhance the UI a bit. Right now, it's very basic, I would say, compared to the MicroStrategy or Qlik."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."
"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."
"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."
"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."
"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."
"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."
"The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."
"Compared to others, I think it is reasonable."
"I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed."
"There is room for at least 45% discount as compared to the initial price."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"No comment."
"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
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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
Educational Organization
46%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?
The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?
TM1 is quite expensive, and I'd rate the pricing as an eight out of ten. While we do get what we want in terms of functionalities and compatibility with other IBM tools, given the product's old arc...
What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?
Since I'm using TM1 as an old version of Planning Analytics, it wouldn't be fair to specify what needs improvement because it's possible these issues have already been addressed in newer versions. ...
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

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Anaplan, Oracle, IBM and others in Business Performance Management. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.