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Microsoft Power BI vs Sigma comparison

Microsoft and Sigma Computing are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.8, while Sigma Computing is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.0. Microsoft holds a 20.7% mindshare in BIT, compared to Sigma Computing’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Sigma Computing users who would recommend it.

Microsoft Power BI

Read 321 Microsoft Power BI reviews

16,352 Views
13,821 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Sigma

Read 6 Sigma reviews

1,329 Views
736 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Sigma

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Microsoft Power BI and Sigma compete in the business intelligence solutions category. Sigma is viewed as having superior features, while Power BI leads with pricing and customer service.

Features: Microsoft Power BI provides comprehensive data visualization, robust report generation, and seamless integration into other Microsoft products. Sigma is strong in powerful analytics capabilities, efficient complex data modeling, and advanced analytics features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Power BI offers straightforward deployment with strong support and resources, backed by Microsoft's service infrastructure. Sigma, though requiring more initial configuration, offers focused support for technical queries.

Pricing and ROI: Power BI is noted for its competitive pricing and high ROI for small to mid-sized enterprises. Sigma's higher setup costs are reflective of its advanced features, offering a strong ROI for larger enterprises with complex data needs.

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

June 2025

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Helped 860,592 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

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)

Sigma

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

16th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Visualization (14th)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 20.7%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sigma is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Q&A Highlights

Pambos Soteriades

Founder & CEO at PiSigma

Apr 29, 2023

Which solution is better for a company in the telecoms industry: Signa or Power BI?

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

See all answers

Featured Reviews

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

Russell Rothstein

CEO at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Modern dashboards and reports enhance decision-making and presentations

I would love to be able to create my own reports in Sigma, as I can do in Salesforce. Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst. I'm interested in the upcoming AI co-pilot to enable natural language generation of visualizations and reports. Also, the marketing materials did not match what I feel we've received. Regarding pricing, Sigma's pricing doesn't allow more people to have the ability to create their own reports. We have very few admin or report creator licenses, while everyone else is on a view-only mode.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a great tool for visualization data, and it's free for engineers."

"The most valuable feature is that it's easy to use. It's very useful for non-engineers and it is the ultimate solution for providing information and insights. Power BI is the best visualization tool I have ever worked with."

"Power BI stands out because it provides considerable flexibility in creating reports, dashboards, and various types of analytics to meet those dynamic requirements. It is lightweight and easy to use with good support."

"Real-time refresh is quite interesting and user-friendly, provided you have access to a gateway. It works well."

"I like all the tools in Microsoft BI because they all have different purposes. There are a lot of people using Microsoft BI, and everybody is using it. The users have adapted well to the technology."

"It integrates with all of the Microsoft tools."

"The way data is presented is very valuable. The amount of information that we can get at a glance is also valuable. You can then drill-down and see data from many different angles in the same chart by selecting certain things. Based on the selection, everything changes automatically. If we have four parameters in a particular item, when you select a parameter, the remaining charts on that page automatically change for that particular parameter."

"I like data modeling. You can connect with your database, which is quite useful for me. It is a good tool if you have a large amount of data and you want to gather different data and interconnect it. The Power Query functionality is quite an interesting feature. If you have a query in Excel, you can also copy your query and run it in Power BI. Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated. You don't need to be a developer to be able to use it. I am not an IT guy, and it is quite easy to use for somebody who is not an IT person."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

"The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use."

"The most valuable aspect for me is having real-time data."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"Sigma serves as the visualization and reporting front end."

"The most valuable feature of Sigma is the detailed reports."

"I find the collaborative features, such as commenting, to be very valuable."

"Sigma is a great software for non-technical business users. If someone's familiar with pivot tables or Excel or Google Sheets, they should be able to pick up Sigma pretty quickly. There is a very low bar for onboarding."

Cons

"We would like it if they added more Python libraries in the Power BI service. For Power BI service right now, you can use Python, but it is limited to a few libraries or a few packages from Python."

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

"SSMS & SSRS."

"I have a little problem with Synapse Analytics because it's very new. It's a product that has many capabilities, but it is not very well developed. I have to see the list of permissions from one object. I can't do this in Synapse. I have to search on the web for a solution because I don't have the tool for it."

"We need more integration capabilities."

"The product could have better analytics capabilities."

"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."

"People without private emails cannot publish and, frankly, this doesn't allow for easy training."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

"Sigma lacks a versioning feature to track changes. There is a need for better structuring, like a folder system, to organize diagrams efficiently."

"Sigma could have better reports."

"The only minor area for improvement lies in handling highly complex visualizations."

"Sigma could have better reports."

"The product's roadmap regarding introducing new features in the solution or new versions of the tool can be made better in the future."

"I would like to see better visualization options. That would allow me to build out more visually pleasing dashboarding in Sigma."

"Either we are not using it properly, or the software is too complicated. It would be great if there was a way for me to create reports without relying on a data analyst."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I used the tool's free version."

"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."

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."

"It is a cheap solution for our needs."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"All in all, for the price, this is an excellent tool for helping your organization turn mounds of data into useful insights."

"The price of the license can be better."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

"The retail price is set at one thousand dollars per creator per year."

See which vendors are best for you

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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

Answers from the Community

Pambos Soteriades

Founder & CEO at PiSigma

Apr 29, 2023

Which solution is better for a company in the telecoms industry: Signa or Power BI?

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

See 2 answers

Ronald Chavez

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

Read full answer

Ronald Chavez

Cloud Services at Supérate

Apr 29, 2023

This market comparison chart....https://www.gartner.com/doc/re...;ct=230130&st=sb

Read full answer

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Healthcare Company

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Sigma?

The tool's interface is easy to use. The functions listed as a part of the menu items are easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sigma?

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. Most users have view...

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What needs improvement with Sigma?

See all answers

Comparisons

Tableau vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 14% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Hex vs Sigma

Compared 36% of the time

Apache Superset vs Sigma

Compared 16% of the time

Omni vs Sigma

Compared 13% of the time

Tableau vs Sigma

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Sigma

Compared 8% of the time

More Sigma Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

June 2025

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Buyer's Guide

Sigma

June 2025

Download Sigma product report

Also Known As

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

No data available

Overview

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

Sigma is the next-generation of analytics for cloud data warehouses with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface that gives business experts the power to ask any question of their data no matter the query.

Sigma Computing

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

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

June 2025

Free Report: Microsoft Power BI vs. Sigma

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

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