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Microsoft Power BI vs Plotly Dash Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
Plotly Dash Enterprise
Ranking in Reporting
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
4.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 17.4%, down from 27.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Plotly Dash Enterprise is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI17.4%
Plotly Dash Enterprise1.8%
Other80.8%
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Anaplanner at Chaucer Group
Data integration has improved reserving and expense control while collaboration drives fast dashboards
Regarding drawbacks or weak points in Microsoft Power BI, it may not be directly related to the tool itself, but with our architecture, as we couldn't get a service account, which is an email address that has no relationship with the employees, just to establish the connection with Anaplan. We couldn't get it to work on SSO, so we use an employee account which could be a point of weakness, meaning if the person leaves, that connection will break. If the person goes on holiday and we need to refresh, we have to change the connection as well, but we have to live with that since we're not using SSO on the service account. Regarding the natural language processing feature, we're trying to avoid using it too much because it can slow down the connection, so as much as possible, we try to build the logic and any transformation in Anaplan, and then deliver an end product to Microsoft Power BI.
reviewer2785038 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
Python dashboards have transformed employment data into interactive insights for better decisions
The main improvement I can think of is that while creating charts, it gives you a certain format of how it could look. If you want to create something extra and go more vivid and creative with how the actual chart would look, it allows for that option but could be improved to be more artistic or aesthetically pleasing. This sort of format is missing, and I think it would be beneficial to the analytics team if it can be more interactive, with the capability of D3.js, and give us more control over how our actual dashboard would look to achieve a more aesthetic appearance. The strict format of how you can shape those charts and that extra nuance you need to keep in code to get the exact possible results are the reasons behind my rating. The rest of the features provided by Plotly are extremely good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Other people can access data much more easily than before. Its usability is the main advantage, people in the company are using it."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"I like the fact that Power BI lets me use Excel data. At least 90% of my state data is in Excel spreadsheets. Having the ability to just attach a spreadsheet as a data source is very, very important. It's also good for training and teaching. Sometimes you don't always have access to a live production database, so having a spreadsheet with sample data is always nice."
"It is in the cloud, which makes it easy for mobile access of reports and data."
"SSRS and the Tabular server/Vertipaq engine/DAX are probably the two most valuable components."
"It is quite easy to use and it helps me to achieve the projects that I've been assigned."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"MS SQL & SQL Server Analysis Services."
"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten."
"Plotly Dash Enterprise helps us achieve a much more interactive and vivid form of visualization for our organization, which helps us drive better results and analytics."
"When reviewing and interpreting data, I typically examine it in a tabular form to understand its structure. However, when explaining or presenting the findings to others, I often use visualization tools such as Plotly. These tools allow me to create visual representations of datasets."
"The level of interactivity that the product provides is valuable to me."
 

Cons

"We did have some issues building the Microsoft blog."
"There is no specific area that I have a problem with. It's just that, with whatever feature you come across, every visual has its own formatting and behavior. What you get in one visual for a feature, you don't seem to get in another."
"The integration with third-party products could be more stable."
"I think because I'm moving more into RPA, I'd definitely like to see integration across the RPA, Power BI, or Tableau platforms, because that integration could then make automation and mundane reporting much faster."
"It should have more report outputs. They should expand the report outputs. Its documentation should also be better."
"Microsoft BI lacks some of the scheme features. It would be beneficial if there were a way to show how we move values in a different way."
"The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug."
"Powerpoints are not available in the report server."
"I believe that the prices of the tool's paid services could be on the premium side, so the pricing model can be considered for improvement."
"The solution cannot be deployed on the website and shared with others through its own platform."
"The tool needs to improve its pie charts. Regarding Plotly, I find the online documentation somewhat challenging to navigate, especially when dealing with many parameters. Searching through thousands of parameters can be a tedious and less straightforward process. While the documentation is available online and serves its purpose, I often encounter difficulties in finding the information."
"The main improvement I can think of is that while creating charts, it gives you a certain format of how it could look."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"As far as I am aware you do not need a license for the solution."
"Make it low in cost. It is a no-brainer!"
"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."
"The pricing is good. It's pretty competitive because I have worked on a few other tools as well, and Power BI is on the cheaper side."
"We pay for users who are publishing on the cloud. The desktop version is free. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Remove the cost of a licence to show a dashboard within SharePoint. Why should readers of a dashboard have to pay to view? ​"
"Power BI comes with enterprise Microsoft licensing. So for the user, you don't have to pay, but you do have to pay a one-time cost."
"I only use the free tier of the product."
"It is an open-source tool. My company hasn't explored Plotly's premium services yet, but I believe the prices could be on the premium side."
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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
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise166
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 needs improvement with Plotly?
The main improvement I can think of is that while creating charts, it gives you a certain format of how it could look. If you want to create something extra and go more vivid and creative with how ...
What is your primary use case for Plotly?
We use Plotly Dash Enterprise mainly for creating dashboards using Python. With Plotly's support of Python, it helps us to develop interactive dashboards according to the customer use case and the ...
What advice do you have for others considering Plotly?
It's a great tool to incorporate in your organization to develop dashboards that help your analytics team derive better decisions and generate more business profits. It gives you much more control ...
 

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
Google, Goji, VIT, Smpl Bio, U.S. Air Force, C12 Energy, New York University
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Plotly Dash Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.