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Microsoft Power BI vs Workday Prism Analytics 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
327
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
Workday Prism Analytics
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 9.4%, down from 21.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday Prism Analytics is 1.3%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Power BI9.4%
Workday Prism Analytics1.3%
Other89.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
Robust system consistently elevates data visualization and seamlessly updates with user-driven advancements
Power BI is a general-use visualization system. I can express the performance of our network through high-level key performance indicators. It allows me to show detailed improvements in quality and safety and patient experience. I create improvement dashboards for task forces and work teams. I have built analytic dashboards that guide analytics, enabling research and dataset manipulation.
Sarvesh Kumar Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technology Consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers
Provides great flexibility in terms of data transformation
I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation. Workday introduced Prism Analytics mainly because many clients wanted to merge data from different systems and then work with it to get some insights out of it. For that, they previously used tools like Power BI. Workday Prism Analytics gives you the power to do all the data transformations within Workday itself without taking out crucial data to a third system. I really like the way Workday has enabled Prism Analytics to be that one solution where you can bring everything. It also provides you the flexibility that things like the security model of Workday are still in place. You don't have to redo your security configuration if you do the data transformation outside Workday.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is in the cloud, which makes it easy for mobile access of reports and data."
"It allows individuals to do the analysis themselves​."
"We are able to collaborate on things and get insightful data visualizations."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility, how many ways you can interrogate the data, and the the graphical visualization."
"Data integration is very useful in Power BI. It lets me collect data from many sources. For example, I can get data from Oracle databases and SQL Server databases at the same time."
"As it was my first time using Power BI, I can say that it was fairly easy to learn, especially if you already know BI-type tools."
"The most valuable feature would be the abundance of connectors. It is also easy to use."
"It integrates better with other Microsoft products. It is very easy to use and has very powerful visualizations. It has also got a lot of development going on."
"The product is easier to use compared to other applications."
"I really like the flexibility the solution provides in terms of data transformation."
"The solution is stable and reliable, with minimal issues affecting its performance."
"The customer service and support are pretty good."
"Feature-wise, I feel that the solution's stability is good."
 

Cons

"Whenever you work on the same dashboard or on the same code, Microsoft Power BI doesn't have a good architecture that allows multiple people to work on the same project."
"Visualization systems are still relatively young."
"We would like to have better SQL support for queries."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"The one thing that I noticed specifically was the graphical features, and some of the analytical features. They were stronger on the Tableau side."
"Integrating it with the physics build model or the engineering model should be included."
"Microsoft needs to provide more drivers to connect other data sources in a native way."
"Microsoft has got a very large repository of all change suggestions which have been raised by the BI community. They keep on adding features that are very widely sought after by the community. We don't focus on product features. We focus on business requirements. To use the solution, we find that existing features are good enough and offer us a very effective solution."
"The visualization techniques must be upgraded."
"There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics."
"When you create certain objects, a lot of the time, the fields are text. They’re not numeric, date, or any other field type"
"It is not a very scalable product."
"One area for improvement in the solution is the ability to manually update individual rows or columns of data once it has been uploaded."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."
"In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx."
"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."
"It is free."
"The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users."
"We pay for users who are publishing on the cloud. The desktop version is free. Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The costs are small and the benefits are high."
"This solution came free, it was offered by Microsoft with our E3 license."
"I do not know of the licensing cost, but there are additional costs like 5,00,000 for recruitment modules."
"Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool."
"The solution is very expensive."
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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%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise57
Large Enterprise165
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 Workday Prism Analytics?
Based on whatever I have heard, Workday Prism Analytics is considered an expensive tool. In fact, that has been one of the hindrance factors for Workday in making Prism Analytics more sellable.
What needs improvement with Workday Prism Analytics?
I think there are still some gaps in the solution. There is not much flexibility in how we can add external data within Workday Prisma Analytics. For now, Workday has enabled the SFTP server and Am...
What is your primary use case for Workday Prism Analytics?
As a consultant, I use Prism Analytics to implement my client systems. I first have design sessions with them, where we discuss their business gaps and then understand how Workday Prism Analytics c...
 

Also Known As

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

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
Denny's
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Power BI vs. Workday Prism Analytics and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.