Metabase vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Metabase and Microsoft are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Metabase is ranked #26 with an average rating of 7.7, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8. Metabase holds a 0.9% mindshare in BIT, compared to Microsoft’s 21.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Metabase users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Metabase

Read 4 Metabase reviews

424 Views
337 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 321 Microsoft Power BI reviews

20,047 Views
16,081 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Metabase

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and Metabase compete in the business intelligence space. Power BI has an advantage in integration capabilities and analytics, while Metabase offers simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Microsoft Power BI offers seamless integration with Microsoft products, advanced AI-powered analytics, and comprehensive data visualization tools. Metabase is user-friendly with an easy query builder and supports multiple databases with minimal configuration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI requires complex deployment but has extensive support. Metabase is easier to deploy for smaller teams with community-driven support.

Pricing and ROI: Power BI requires a subscription, increasing with advanced plans; it offers high ROI for advanced needs. Metabase has minimal setup costs due to its open-source model, appealing to budget-conscious teams.

To learn more, read our detailed Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 851,604 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

Metabase

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

321

Ranking in other categories

Reporting (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 21.4%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

Ibrahim Izz El-Deen

Data Engineer at USYTech

Modern analytics tool enhances user interactions with neat visualizations for improved decision-making

One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows, requires manual infrastructure management, which could be improved. Increased customization and visualization options in the open-source edition would be beneficial. Additionally, it might be helpful if more complex queries and stored procedures were supported.

Read full review

Shoury Priyanshu

Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd

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.

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

"It is easy for a new user to learn the tool."

"Metabase's key advantage is its modern approach to business intelligence."

"I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used to query data into Metabase. I think it is very useful and handy for a novice."

"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."

"Its connection to every database: Whatever and wherever it is."

"PowerBI – Self-service BI."

"It is stable enough. It has a lot of powerful functions. It can also be customized with the DAX language. It is also intuitive enough and incremental. You can start with something simple, and then step-by-step, you can increase the reports and dashboards according to your needs."

"Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. There are also solutions for RPA, such as Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. Power BI now has integration with Power Query, which has an AI feature for text analytics. Text analytics is a very good feature. This feature is also there in Tableau, but I like it in Power BI because you can write something like, "What is the total sale in the Eastern region?", and it will give you the answer. For example, when you have different types of user opinions, you just run one algorithm and you will have the output that provides the number of positive and negative responses. You can even have a dashboard with positive remarks. This feature has been introduced recently. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis."

"The visualization part and its inclusion in a cloud-based application are valuable features."

"Premium features that used to cost $5,000 per company per month recently became a lot more accessible. Microsoft recently implemented a per user feature in Power BI Premium; it's $20 per month."

"Power BI, once made available, can connect to various data sources, irrespective of the application, whether it be HR or business applications. The bank has many applications, but all eventually need to generate reports for tracking, distribution, or problem-finding based on analysis. Power BI was made available as part of the productivity suite to all businesses, which can connect to their applications and provide the reports and analysis they require."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective."

"The solution could provide more customization."

"The tool must be made more user-friendly."

"I think there is a need to add a few more advanced visuals in the tool. There are a standard set of visuals in the tool which are available."

"Microsoft BI lacks integration capabilities, so it needs to consider increasing its integration capabilities."

"The solution could benefit by allowing deeper data analytics."

"We face multiple issues, and the connection drops off multiple times while integrating Microsoft Power BI with OAC and pulling in the data."

"Power BI could be improved by implementing more options for data integration. Nowadays, the cloud takes care of scalability and security. As we all know, data sources are increasing, so we get data from a variety of streams. But if we could get the downstream data into the database and update the reports more easily, Power BI would be better."

"The Power Query feature needs to be improved to handle large amounts of data. This feature is also slow for large data transfers making it better to use some kind of script."

"The way you navigate the product, compared to other products in this industry, that could be improved a bit."

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

"Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not say it is a cheap tool, but it's viable."

"Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable."

"The product is open-sourced."

"I am satisfied with its price. Its price is very less as compared to Tableau and QlikView."

"Microsoft BI is not expensive."

"Its pricing is great."

"In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx."

"I'm unsure about the exact cost, but the Pro license comes out to around $10 per user. There are also additional costs for custom visuals that you can pay for."

"For my primary use case, i.e. teaching students, the free version of Power BI is adequate."

"Pricing is a big advantage that Power BI has over Tableau. Power BI is three or four times cheaper than Tableau. For my personal use, I will definitely prefer a $20 monthly fee of Power BI rather than a $70 monthly fee of Tableau. If you pay altogether for Power BI, they give you a discount, whereas, with Tableau, there is no discount. There are three versions of Power BI: Free, Pro, and Premium. The Premium version comes with a lot of things. There is no extra or hidden fee. You pay every month, and the software is with you. If you upgrade, there will be some extra charges."

"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."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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

Computer Software Company

25%

Comms Service Provider

16%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

37%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Metabase?

Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Metabase?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Metabase?

I used Metabase for business intelligence and analytics in my organization. We connected Metabase to AWS Athena, allowing us to query and visualize data stored in S3 buckets.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

May 2025

Download Metabase product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

May 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Metabase is a business intelligence tool designed for analyzing data with ease. It's known for its straightforward setup, making data visualization and exploration accessible to teams without coding expertise.

Metabase simplifies the process of deriving insights from data. It allows users to pose questions and instantly view results in the form of tables or charts. Its open-source nature offers flexibility for customization, paired with a clean and intuitive dashboard providing an efficient way to manage and share data insights. Users appreciate its ability to connect with multiple databases, enabling seamless data integration and analysis across platforms.

What are the valuable features?

Ad-hoc Querying: Enables non-technical users to create complex queries visually.
Dashboard Sharing: Facilitates easy sharing of insights through customizable dashboards.
Data Visualization: Supports various chart types for better data interpretation.
Open Source: Offers the flexibility to tailor features to specific business requirements.
Database Connectivity: Connects with numerous data sources to unify data analysis.

What are the benefits and ROI?

Cost Efficiency: Lowers costs by eliminating the need for costly proprietary solutions.
Increased Productivity: Saves time with easy setup and quick data interpretation.
Improved Decision-Making: Access to actionable insights enhances strategic decisions.
Flexibility: Customizable to meet evolving business data analysis needs.

Metabase implementation varies across industries such as tech, e-commerce, and healthcare, allowing firms to leverage analytics for performance optimization. Companies in tech appreciate seamless integration with SQL databases, while e-commerce benefits from sales trend analysis. Healthcare utilizes Metabase for patient data evaluation, aiding in informed healthcare service decisions.

Metabase

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

Information Not Available

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

Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

April 2025

Free Report: Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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