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Microsoft Power BI vs Omni 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

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
332
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Omni
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
18th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
9.1
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 7.4%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Omni is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI7.4%
Omni1.1%
Other91.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions
Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.
Dalvi Raghuram - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Technician at HCLSoftware
Unified metrics have reduced confusion and now empower teams to explore data and decide faster
Omni helped my team solve the multiple sources of truth problem by centralizing metric definitions in a governed semantic layer, so we stop debating KPIs and start aligning on the same numbers. It also bridges the gap between technical and non-technical users. Analysts can use SQL while business users can work with spreadsheet-like formulas, so more people can self-serve without constant data team support. As a result, we can answer questions faster, iterate on analysis in one place, and scale reporting more reliably across teams. Omni has positively impacted our organization because it helps us answer questions faster, iterate on analysis in one place, and scale reporting more reliably across teams. This tool has also been very beneficial because it simplifies tracking key metrics, improves visibility across different data sources, and makes it easier to identify trends and patterns without depending heavily on technical teams. It also saves time, supports better decision-making, and enables more efficient reporting through centralized dashboards and visual analytics. I can give you a specific example of how much time my team has saved since using Omni: it has greatly improved our decision-making from 40 to 68 percent. We have also been able to save time ranging from 60 to 70 percent.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product can go easily go and extract data and it can put it into any format."
"It gives you an edge if you are on the Microsoft platform, because 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, with seamless integration with Microsoft SQL Server and other sources so you get the best of the three things (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS) in one suite."
"The stability is great and continues to get better and better."
"With the out-of-the-box Data Platform and Business Intelligence ecosystem, you get the entire platform with a single license."
"With AI in Microsoft Power BI, when we ingest the data and use the GenAI tools at our disposal, AI helps automate the process and represent the visualizations to our customers and clients."
"The solution is stable with reasonable performance."
"One of the key factors why I use Power BI is because it's very flexible with other Microsoft tools."
"Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated."
"Omni is a powerful analytics tool that helps us make faster and better decisions."
 

Cons

"When you go to the cloud, its licensing is not intuitive. It is a little bit complex. When you have to purchase a new license, it is difficult to understand on their website what exactly you need to pay and how you can group. It is something that is applicable to all Microsoft products. They're not always so simple and clear when it comes to licensing. Their support can also be better in terms of explaining how they resolved an issue and what steps they took to resolve it. They are able to resolve the issue, but they can be better at explaining the approach they took to resolve the issue. It could have something in the direction of machine learning. It can have some kind of integration with machine learning where you can ask for some reports with natural language."
"What you get with Power BI is that you start to find that even simple stuff requires a lot of gymnastics to achieve because there's no in-built, straightforward feature for it and you need to come up with a workaround."
"The visual outlet or the visualization aspect can be improved because the settings piece is quite problematic. It requires a lot of time to set the visuals and check. It is quite fiddly to change all the settings and font sizes. It just needs better ability in terms of using templates or visualization templates to get the vision. Our users always benchmark based on the product, and they don't appreciate everything under the bonnet. The only rating is based on the actual reports in the settings for the dashboard. They should make it look a bit funky and a bit more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. It is quite a fiddly tool, but other than that, it is pretty slick. Because it is community-driven, the marketplace tends to be changing forever. You get the standard visualizations, and you've also got all other marketplace visualizations that require you to spend a bit more money and purchase things in the marketplace. With certain visualizations, there is no longevity. I had used certain visualizations, but they discontinued them, and I had to rebuild my reports, which is obviously very frustrating. There should be some sort of stabilization around how the marketplace visuals impact the users when they expire."
"The interface could be improved."
"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."
"It is not yet ready for enterprises. For a big enterprise data model, it is not so stable, and it also doesn't scale so well."
"I would like to see more AI capabilities in future releases. There's a strong interest in AI, including technologies like GPT, which facilitate real-time interactions."
"The only challenge I have found is that they do not have a Mac version of Power BI."
"Some advanced features feel a bit hidden and the modeling IDE experience could use stronger IntelliSense plus better organization with deeper field nesting to make large webhooks easier to navigate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The premium licensing is approximately $5,000 per month which is pretty expensive."
"I believe that the price is reasonable, at least for an enterprise solution."
"The pricing for the solution is relatively higher compared to other alternatives."
"The Report Server is pretty expensive on-premise. But as long companies are happy to use the cloud version, that's very cost effective."
"The cost of this product is very low, at approximately $8 or $9 per month for a developer."
"The price of Microsoft BI is reasonable. Other solutions such as SAP Cloud are more expensive."
"Microsoft BI is not expensive."
"The solution's pricing is medium."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - BI Head with 5,001-10,000 employees
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
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Omni?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Omni is very transparent in price and very cost-efficient.
What needs improvement with Omni?
A few things could be improved about Omni. Some advanced features feel a bit hidden and the modeling IDE experience could use stronger IntelliSense plus better organization with deeper field nestin...
What is your primary use case for Omni?
My main use case for Omni is that it makes it easy for both an analyst and business users to explore data and build dashboards quickly. It supports different workflows like SQL and spreadsheet-like...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and others in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.