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Microsoft Power BI vs Sisense 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
6.8
Sisense enhances productivity and decision-making, offering cost savings and improved reporting despite initial expenses, boosting client insights and efficiency.
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 makes it very easy for us to make data-driven decisions and we are able to forecast our future predicament or future plans, hence increasing or boosting productivity in my organization.
Lead Software Engineer at Ernst & Young
Due to the data presented to stakeholders, they are able to make informed decisions that impact the day-to-day operations of the client, giving them more insights into what's happening within their organization.
System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed
We have been able to save approximately 10,000 K.
Network Engineer at AT&T
 

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
7.6
Sisense customer service excels with responsive, knowledgeable support, resolving issues efficiently and providing personalized, proactive solutions.
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
Sisense customer support is very helpful, very responsive, and very dedicated, providing 24/7 assistance.
Network Engineer at AT&T
The support was very good.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
We typically get responses within 24 hours.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 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
7.4
Sisense offers scalability for medium to large businesses, though some face slower queries with large datasets and complex use cases.
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.
It is scalable to a very large extent and we can integrate any third-party tools.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Sisense's scalability is impressive as it can crunch a lot more data and has consistently better performance.
Lead Software Engineer at Ernst & Young
Sisense works really well for simple to medium use cases and scales well.
System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed
 

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
8.0
Users generally find Sisense stable, though some encounter issues with data import and dashboard load times, but improvements noted.
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
Sisense is very stable and can handle a large amount of data quickly.
Senior Business Analyst at Target
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved mobile compatibility, licensing, real-time data, advanced analytics, ease of use, and flexible design in Power BI.
Sisense needs better data connections, control, mobile usability, technical support, customization, integration handling, admin features, and CI/CD support.
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
I would like to see an improvement in the live data connection, specifically making the process faster.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
It could provide more connectors to integrate with emerging different data sources to exponentially increase the amount of data it can handle.
System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed
I give Sisense a nine because the integration with some third-party tools is good.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Power BI provides flexible pricing options, offering free, Pro, and Premium plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises respectively.
Sisense provides flexible pricing for SMEs, generally cheaper than ThoughtSpot, but can incur extra costs for add-ons.
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
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is cost-effective, but for smaller organizations working under a tight budget, this tool might be a bit expensive for them.
Lead Software Engineer at Ernst & Young
There was no significant difference in pricing between Sisense and ThoughtSpot.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that pricing is a little bit higher when compared to other applications, but that justifies the use case.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Power BI offers strong data visualization, seamless integration, and customization, making it ideal for interactive, collaborative report creation.
Sisense offers rapid data processing, seamless integration, and intuitive dashboards, enhancing strategic insights and decision-making efficiency with ease.
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
It offers two ways to access data: by cubing the data or hitting it live.
Business Intelligence & Reporting Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
It allows the user to cater to different use cases and is a very fast aggregator across different data sources, giving you the historical context and helping in operationalizing your data.
System Integration Specialist at a non-profit with self employed
Sisense has positively impacted my organization by drastically reducing the time taken to build the data cube, and we can see real-time analytics.
Project Manager at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Ranking in Reporting
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sisense
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
11th
Ranking in Reporting
9th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Analytics (3rd), Data Visualization (8th), Embedded BI (7th)
 

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 Sisense is 1.4%, up from 1.4% 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%
Sisense1.4%
Other89.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

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.
Caramel Moana - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Business Analyst at Target
Data analytics has transformed our KPI tracking and now drives faster sales decisions
This tool has given me the power to convert data into new analytical applications, giving me transparency about working on multiple platforms, and since it is cloud-based, it combines different pages for a complete progress report. Overall, it is playing a perfect, fantastic role in my organization. Some of the best features Sisense offers include its speed due to the In-Chip methodology, great visualization that makes BI easier, and the ability to load millions of data in seconds, which did not seem possible with other traditional reporting tools. It also has a robust architecture and provides REST APIs for external access. I emphasized the In-Chip methodology because it allows for accessing millions of data in a short span of seconds while providing the best visual effects for our business data.
report
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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
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
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 Business28
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise15
 

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 Sisense?
So far, Sisense is performing well, but some visualizations lack flexibility in design options. Sisense should improve on handling extremely large data sets, and they should improve on maintaining ...
What is your primary use case for Sisense?
In our organization, we use Sisense for business intelligence where it helps us with complex data from multiple sources and provides excellent insights, which makes it easy for us to make data-driv...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sisense?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been positive, as the price is relatively affordable compared to other solutions, and I have no challenges with the pricing. The setup is s...
 

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
Ebay, WIX, Wave Accounting, ESPN.com, Magellan Luxury Hotel, Paylogic, Sony, Merck, EDA, One Hour Translation, NASA, Plastic Jungle, Philips, Yahoo
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Sisense and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.