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Microsoft Power BI vs Sigma 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI enhances productivity with ease of use, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and improved data analysis, boosting decision-making.
Sentiment score
6.0
Sigma enhances efficiency by saving time and costs, offering instant insights crucial for data tasks and decision-making.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Power BI, including money saved and fewer employees needed.
Consultant at National Australian Bank
It's essential for everything data-related within our company.
CEO at PeerSpot
I have seen a return on investment with Sigma; we already said that it saves about a quarter, it gets me to answers about 25% faster.
Customer Success Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
I have definitely seen a return on investment through time saving because once the dashboards are built, they are built.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power BI's support is mixed, with variations in responsiveness and effectiveness depending on user needs and resources.
Sentiment score
6.8
Sigma's customer service is praised for its responsive, knowledgeable support team, enhancing platform usability with efficient real-time assistance.
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
The support is good because there is also a community available.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
Their support I really think is a 10 out of 10.
As Sigma is a cloud platform, you do not need to do all that maintenance work.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Power BI is praised for scalability, cloud integration, and flexibility, but licensing and large datasets present challenges.
Sentiment score
5.6
Sigma's cloud-native architecture scales efficiently, offering live data, easy management, and unlimited viewers, supporting growth without performance issues.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
Permissions are easily set, so you only get to see what you need to see and you can share what needs to be shared.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Power BI is reliable for most reporting needs, though it can slow down with large datasets and network issues.
Sentiment score
8.1
Sigma offers stable performance for daily tasks, with users experiencing reliable service and minimal need for support.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
We did not face typical errors during our project with Sigma.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved mobile compatibility, licensing, real-time data, advanced analytics, ease of use, and flexible design in Power BI.
Sigma requires improvements in query handling, visualization, performance, usability, error handling, version tracking, and AI feature enhancements.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities.
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes.
Technical Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst.
CEO at PeerSpot
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI provides flexible pricing options, offering free, Pro, and Premium plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises respectively.
Sigma's pricing is moderate with flexible licensing, though creator licenses may limit wider report access despite eliminating infrastructure costs.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Responsable du département Projets et Applications at CHD Vendée
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
The pricing of Sigma is a concern, as it restricts our ability to provide more users with report-creating capabilities due to the high cost of admin or report creator licenses.
CEO at PeerSpot
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power BI offers strong data visualization, seamless integration, and customization, making it ideal for interactive, collaborative report creation.
Sigma offers self-service data manipulation and collaboration with Snowflake integration, enhancing decision-making through its advanced features and scalability.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
Senior Technical Service Engineer Expert at Fujitsu
The use of Sigma in decision-making, presentations to customers, and reporting to investors showcases its value in handling data-related tasks.
CEO at PeerSpot
Sigma has positively affected my organization by saving us time in accessing information, which ultimately gets us to complete projects faster.
Customer Success Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Sigma has positively impacted my organization because I think it has been a huge impact, and we use it for all our reporting and our dashboards for tracking.
Head of Marketing at a tech company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Sigma
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Data Visualization (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 9.3%, down from 21.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Sigma1.7%
Other89.0%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

PS
Founder & CEO at PiSigma
Apr 29, 2023
 

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.
reviewer2729628 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Analytics Consultant at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Great collaboration with intuitive interface and dynamic visualization capabilities
As we are exploring multiple features in Sigma, I think Sigma can add more functionality. As Power BI gives multiple modeling options in its interface with the query editor, those features can be added in Sigma for intuitiveness or for making the data very clean. From the dashboarding perspective, it performs well. However, from the modeling perspective, it requires more capabilities that can be added in Sigma. The main improvement needed is in data modeling capabilities. If they add those features in the near future, it would be very helpful for us to implement the same or do the data cleansing part in the Sigma tool itself.
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

PS
Founder & CEO at PiSigma
Apr 29, 2023
Apr 29, 2023
This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb
See 2 answers
Ronald Chavez - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Services at Supérate
Apr 29, 2023
The two are similar, it is cars but of different brands; I ask 1-) the users use Windows 2-) you have Office 365 3-) They will use Excel for the data. If you answer yes to the 3, better BI due to integration, and learning is easier for the user. If they are non-Microsoft databases, investigate on the provider's side, for example, SAP, IBM, etc. I have trained end users in Power BI. I know that Power BI has the majority of connectors. I hope my comment is helpful. Regards
Ronald Chavez - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Services at Supérate
Apr 29, 2023
This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise166
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise2
 

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 Sigma?
I do not know much about my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing because I am not heavily involved in that.
What needs improvement with Sigma?
I think Sigma can be improved because, for the last ten months since I first started here, this is my first time ever using it, and I think there is a steep learning curve. It is not as intuitive a...
What is your primary use case for Sigma?
My main use case for Sigma is that there are a bunch of reports, and many of our main reports are built on Sigma. I use it as a dashboard, review the reports, filter through there, and use it to he...
 

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
Snowflake, Fivetran ,Autodesk, Flowspace, Super League Gaming, Zumper, Clover, Volta, Olivela
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.