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Knowage vs MicroStrategy 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

Knowage
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
32nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (23rd)
MicroStrategy
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
163
Ranking in other categories
Embedded BI (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MicroStrategy is 1.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MicroStrategy1.2%
Knowage1.0%
Other97.8%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Harjinder-Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Reporting on insurance finances has become robust and supports detailed geo-spatial analysis
I am quite satisfied with the reporting part of the product. However, compared to other tools, the modeling part is not as strong. Data modeling is not as easy on MicroStrategy as it is on other platforms. I have worked with the administration tool and the Architect tool for MicroStrategy, but creating a star schema is not as easy compared to other tools. Creating hierarchies and the modeling part is challenging because data modeling is one of the most important aspects of any BI project. If you can create a star schema or Snowflake schema easily, then report building becomes straightforward. Additionally, MicroStrategy's Workstation tool compared to Developer still lacks some functionality that can be done more easily on the Developer side. Workstation is a great tool, but they have not given it full functionality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I can't name the features the way the Knowage community calls them because I still don't know the lingo. However, I can describe them. I like the ability to join more than one report, set all fields on one end, and replicate that on the other reports. I like that a lot. I think it's one of the features that got me using Knowage. They have tables, and I like that too. They took SQL scripts and many other scripts and enabled them to even correlate with Python. That's also one of the best things about Knowage. You could also decide to get information per user role, and this is also a feature that I like in Knowage."
"It's a great product. It has a lot more features than many other BI tools. You can get the most out of machine learning, the best connectivity to Python, and it cuts across enterprise sections."
"I would use SpagoBI if a company wants to use a free tool that has enough features."
"Our customers really appreciate the self-service BI functionalities."
"The embedding feature is great."
"We can easily do our own customizations."
"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."
"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."
"Has a great semantic layer."
"If you have data, it is not that complex. It's manageable even for end users."
"I think one of the greatest things about MicroStrategy is their holistic approach to business intelligence."
"It has landing pages, and that makes life easy for exhibiting things."
"The feature I found most valuable is the drop and drag functionality available."
"I really value that MicroStrategy is a complete suite built to enable organizations to quickly deploy sophisticated analytical and security applications."
"MicroStrategy's data visualization capabilities are great, and I would rate them nine out of 10."
"It scales well. It used to have only a max of four I-servers, but I think recently, somewhere in version 10, they doubled that, so you can have eight I-servers now."
 

Cons

"The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills."
"Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service."
"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."
"We expected the community to be bigger than what it currently is."
"Many things need to be improved, most of all robustness."
"The dashboard components could be better. They could do a lot more."
"We are not happy with the poor graphic user interface. It looks a bit old and sometimes it is not properly user friendly."
"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."
"I only encountered stability issues when using the enterprise manager."
"I would give the solution a seven out of 10 for now."
"MicroStrategy is dragging behind other tools on the self-service visualizations, like Tableau. I would rate Tableau as a 10. For the same visualizations, I would say MicroStrategy is an eight, maybe nine. They're still behind on the self-service visualizations,"
"Pricing, in general, is high. With Power BI, you get mobile with the license, whereas with MicroStrategy, you have to purchase mobile for extra."
"The product could be improved by adding additional visualization."
"You can now do data blending at the document level and data blending allows you to show results from different data sets in one grid, so to speak. I want to be able to create a data set that can receive data from multiple cubes, have it in one data set, and then bring it to the document, because then I can reuse it for other documents. Now, I have to do it in a document and then it's less reusable, because if I want to share that functionality, I have to copy the document, strip a lot of things, and then work on that basic element that I've built in that document."
"One of the things that I want to see MicroStrategy do is become more cloud native. Right now, the deployment on cloud is very easy to ruin, it is very much like spinning up separate VMs."
"MicroStrategy should become more user friendly. It should behave more like Tableau."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We actually researched some of the other solutions. For options, price, and customer acceptance, this product has worked well for us.​"
"They need to work on their license structure. They are not competitive against somebody like SAP BusinessObjects. We had a quote that was almost a third the price, coming from SAP BusinessObjects, and it's not a better platform. It's not cheaper. They do concurrent user licensing, while MicroStrategy does named user licensing, and that was literally the only difference. But it made a $500,000 difference. They've got to do something to make themselves more competitive. Maybe it's assessing your business users and what you really expect them to use, and maybe giving a reduced price on that. But they are already giving us a 60% discount and they were still a million or so above, over a three-year time period. That doesn't account for synergies as we get from on-site resources that are already available, but I thought that that was a big, big deficit for them."
"​The solution is scalable. A little expensive perhaps, but it is scalable.​"
"We have one of the best pricing available, but we can't disclose that information."
"​They gave us a good deal.​"
"There have been actual direct bottomline impacts in terms of extra revenue created from the reporting solutions."
"It is expensive. We would like to extend it to many users, but we are currently restricting that because the cost is a constraint. If we are given a chance, we would love to expand it."
"I am unsure what the licensing costs are for this solution however, development costs are around $100,000 per year."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
University
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise26
Large Enterprise101
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MicroStrategy?
My company has many licenses for MicroStrategy because we can build reports in this tool. I don't know what the cost is for these licenses.
What needs improvement with MicroStrategy?
I am quite satisfied with the reporting part of the product. However, compared to other tools, the modeling part is not as strong. Data modeling is not as easy on MicroStrategy as it is on other pl...
What is your primary use case for MicroStrategy?
Harjinder, I recall approximately two years back we had a conversation with you about ForgeRock and Auth0, and I think we had discussed MicroStrategy as well. Currently, we are using it for financi...
 

Also Known As

SpagoBI
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Allstate Insurance, Barneys New York, Boston Children's Hospital, Buenos Aires Department of the Treasury, Campbell Soup Company, DHL, eBay, eHarmony, Facebook, Four Seasons Hotels Inc., Godiva, Hard Rock International, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pfizer, SECO (Swiss Government Unemployment Agency), Starbucks, Texas A&M University, Thomson Reuters Markets, US House of Representatives, and the US Postal Service.
Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. MicroStrategy and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.