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Microsoft Power BI vs RStudio Connect 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 Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)
RStudio Connect
Ranking in Reporting
21st
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.7%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of RStudio Connect is 0.5%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Reporting
 

Featured Reviews

Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal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 Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated.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.
LM
Graphical learning experience needs improvement but handles large datasets effectively
RStudio Connect ( /products/rstudio-connect-reviews ) is very powerful statistically and can handle large datasets, even on a free version on a laptop. It offers excellent customer service and educational resources. KNIME ( /products/knime-reviews ) allows for visual data manipulation, with nodes representing operations, making it user-friendly and effective for statistical analysis and predictions. I appreciate its ability to integrate R or Python scripts, combining ease of use with powerful procedures.

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 feature of Microsoft Power BI is the drill-through feature that takes you to a details page the users want to see."
"There is a feature in Microsoft BI that allows JSON data to SQL on the dashboards effectively and quickly."
"In my opinion, Microsoft BI is a low-cost solution, and it could be an interesting solution for a tourism company."
"Microsoft BI's dashboards are helpful."
"What I like about Power BI is how fast you are able to create dashboards and how fast you are able to fetch the data. You can connect to the database or data source, and then you can design your dashboards very easily."
"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis."
"The amount of customization that you can do is good, and it's relatively straightforward to do."
"With Power BI, you're able to store your data within spreadsheets and SharePoints, and then have Power BI pull the data out and report on it. So we actually saved a ton of money not needing to load the data into databases, which is a big prerequisite for many other reporting tools."
"RStudio Connect is very powerful statistically and can handle large datasets, even on a free version on a laptop."
 

Cons

"SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is not user friendly."
"​It needs more analytic tools."
"I am a SAP user and I would like this tool to have more connectors - and to more easily connect to - the ERP or SAP environment."
"I find the solution to be 70 percent stable."
"We haven't used it that long and I haven't come across anything that's stood out as needing to be fixed."
"I would like to see the product offer more graphics to impact different audiences."
"It should be more scalable for an enterprise-level implementation. When you deploy large data sets, the response has to be faster in Power BI. This is one thing that needs to be improved in it."
"It is too slow. I hope in future it will be a comparable big data tool, such as, for example, Data Lake."
"I rate my experience with RStudio Connect as average because I am not yet comfortable enough to provide a definitive assessment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Report Server is pretty expensive on-premise. But as long companies are happy to use the cloud version, that's very cost effective."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Power BI's price is reasonable, especially if you can put it in some bigger package and use it with other products. The value of a solution doesn't just come from its features as a standalone product. The price should also reflect how easy it's to set up, clean data, and integrate with other solutions."
"Its pricing is reasonable for the desktop stuff, but for enterprise-level, it is a little expensive."
"Their price is good."
"I think it's a good price, from what I've heard. I know it's competitive with other Power BI tools."
"I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed."
"Power BI is cheaper than Tableau and Cognos."
Information not available
report
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852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
37%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Government
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 RStudio Connect?
Both KNIME and RStudio Connect are free to use on a laptop. However, if I want to use a big server version, it is subsidized.
What needs improvement with RStudio Connect?
It could work on visibility or improve that. In RStudio Connect ( /products/rstudio-connect-reviews ), the learning process is not as graphical as KNIME ( /products/knime-reviews ). Although I can ...
What is your primary use case for RStudio Connect?
I use the software primarily for statistics. I have used it on census data from the UK, which covers millions of individuals. Additionally, I have utilized it for surveys and educational purposes, ...
 

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
ENERGETIC INSURANCE, PRECISION ANALYTICS, REDFIN, TWO SIX CAPITALSTACK OVERFLOW, LIBERTY MUTUAL, EDUCATION SUPERHIGHWAY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. RStudio Connect and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.