Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
reviewer2329707 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of BI and Data at a hospitality company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 10
Jul 24, 2024
Easy to adopt and quite easy to roll out into the business for end-users
Pros and Cons
  • "The various different ETL tools within it and the ability to have different data refreshes and scheduled refreshes [real-time data refresh capabilities] have most significantly improved the data analysis processes."
  • "Licensing could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for data modeling, joining data from different data sources, and visualizing dashboards and reports for end-users and business process owners in the company.

How has it helped my organization?

The various different ETL tools within it and the ability to have different data refreshes and scheduled refreshes [real-time data refresh capabilities] have most significantly improved the data analysis processes.

What is most valuable?

Power BI is easy to adopt. It's quite easy to roll out into the business for end-users, and the functionality for modeling and such is quite extensive for the data department.

It has connected to quite a few different things. We use the Microsoft stack, so it's fairly connected.

What needs improvement?

Better structure and stability in terms of licensing and capacity. Microsoft is changing things with Microsoft Fabric and how it's impacting different functionality for premium users, capacity users, and pro users. So, that's where licensing could be improved.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Power BI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it since it came out. It's been many years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten.  

Sometimes, updates can cause data refresh issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. 

There are 100 end users in my organization. We use it daily. 

How are customer service and support?

It takes a while to get the issue described, looked into, and resolved. It's a lot of troubleshooting and "try this, try that," rather than acknowledging that they've had this issue elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be a joined-up approach for people experiencing similar issues and how to resolve them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used various different modeling tools and BI tools. 

We used Tableau before, and general Excel modeling, etc.

How was the initial setup?

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy. 

It's cloud-based.

Initially, it's quite straightforward. It depends on how you want it set up, like with gateway refreshes, etc.

What was our ROI?

Just more visibility for end-users to use and interact with data.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
GheorgheSANDRU - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at AiALL
Real User
Top 5
Apr 7, 2024
Easy to develop custom solutions and connect to a variety of data sources without any other solution
Pros and Cons
  • "You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem."
  • "I'm looking for something that can make it much easier to incorporate Power BI visuals or dashboards into, let's say, Power Apps – custom Power Apps or anything like that. The most important thing would be to seamlessly embed reports in applications. For example, to have buttons that can be navigated through multiple solutions – from Power Apps to Power BI to SharePoint – via links or something like that."

What is our primary use case?

I developed a product based on Power BI. I intensely use it. 

I also use it to generate reports and monthly management reports. It's connected to the production database with connectors. It's not so big data, but it's for medium-sized datasets.

What is most valuable?

It's easy to develop custom solutions. The DAX scripting solution of Power BI is easy to use and covers a lot of needs. 

It's user-friendly. It also has the capacity to connect to a variety of data sources without any other solution – especially within the Microsoft environment- which is very easy.

For us, it's difficult to manage business data and visualize and model it without Power BI or a similar tool. Although, I am more comfortable using Power BI than any other tool. Data modeling is one of the most important features of Power BI because you can model almost anything. For me, it is very helpful. 

What needs improvement?

I haven't personally faced challenges with Power BI, but it might be challenging when it comes to big data usage. I haven't had a real challenge yet - maybe it could become challenging due to a lack of information or skills to use Power BI at a more advanced level.

So, the product could be complex for inexperienced users. It's very complex and you need to keep up with the updates. Otherwise, you can miss a lot of nice features that can be useful in your daily work.

I'm looking for something that can make it much easier to incorporate Power BI visuals or dashboards into, let's say, Power Apps – custom Power Apps or anything like that. 

The most important thing would be to seamlessly embed reports in applications. For example, to have buttons that can be navigated through multiple solutions – from Power Apps to Power BI to SharePoint – via links or something like that. 

If this transition is more natural (so users don't notice they're moving between solutions), it will be very helpful in developing complex solutions without sophisticated workarounds or lots of code. 

Staying within the low-code area, there's a lot of potential for interesting things. This is my main focus – developing low-code solutions that integrate with Power BI.

For how long have I used the solution?

I work with Microsoft's entire suite of products. 

I have been using Power BI for more than five years. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't had major issues because my usage is at a medium level, not a high level. I haven't personally interacted with Microsoft support. But, there seems to be a lot of information and people using this solution, and it's easy to escalate problems within your company. You can learn a lot of things quickly using resources like ChatGPT or Microsoft's own solutions, which are very helpful within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used MicroStrategy. It's very nice, and similar, but a bit more difficult to connect to other systems. You need more technical skills. With Power BI, those connections are easier. I am not obliged to learn a lot of technical aspects.

For me, Power BI is a very good option. If you're in the Microsoft ecosystem, working with people who use Microsoft solutions, Power BI makes sense. It might be a bit more difficult if you're in a different ecosystem – companies tend to promote their own technologies for upsells and cross-sells. It's a sales thing.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Price is the best feature of Power BI! You get a lot of value for the price. If you know how to use it, it's a great BI solution for your money. 

A complete solution license is no more than fifty euros per month – that's not expensive at all. Even thirty euros per month is enough to have Power BI, Power Apps, SharePoint solutions, and things like that. Very, very cheap.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I would definitely recommend using this solution. Power BI offers very good value for money. You do need some skills, but not necessarily deep technical ones. 

It's more important to understand the business context and how to design effective reports in order to put Power BI and connected solutions from the Power Platform to best use. 

My view is that we often overemphasize the technology and miss the true asset: the value that Power BI and the others bring to the business.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft Power BI
March 2026
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Power BI. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Consultant at LinkDev
Real User
Mar 18, 2024
Helps with data analysis and visualization tasks
Pros and Cons
  • "Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
  • "At times, I feel that the system needs improvement in single sign-on, especially for the on-premises side of the tool."

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution to generate analytics reports for most of the projects we are engaged in within our company.

What needs improvement?

Some controls and integration capabilities of the product require configurations with the help of NoSQL databases, as it is one area where the product has certain shortcomings.

At times, I feel that the system needs improvement in single sign-on, especially for the on-premises side of the tool.

At times, I see the product freeze in unexpected areas. Unknown exceptions appear in the tool for no reason. One problem with the tool arises from the fact that it does way too much monitoring, impacting areas like reports and performance. The aforementioned areas can be improved in the product.

The tool should provide cloud support to help users deal with problems related to the frozen servers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Power BI for five years. My company has a partnership with Microsoft.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Around 100 people in my company use the product. Most of the product's users are managers in my company.

The problematic licensing part of the product influences my company's decision on whether to increase the use of the product.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't seen any major problems when dealing with the product's support team. The product's support team is friendly, but I think there are problems in Microsoft's internal communication since a problem gets distributed between multiple internal teams.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup phase has no problems unless we choose to have it integrated on an on-premises model and not on a cloud version. 

Most of the product deployments are carried out manually by our company.

My company opens reports and publishes the report files for the projects being handled. My company gives required permission for other users to access the reports.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. 

The solution's deployment process is simple to handle, but problems appear in the area of domains, considering that Microsoft Power BI manages the configuration part.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My company needs to make monthly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product. Considering my company's turnover, we need a tool that offers more flexibility and allows us to increase or decrease the solution in our environment.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Tableau offers more flexibility in service compared to Microsoft Power BI. Microsoft Power BI is simple to use compared to Tableau.

What other advice do I have?

Microsoft Power BI has improved our company's data analysis and visualization tasks since it helps simplify our work. My company is able to generate data analysis and easily deal with visualization tasks.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Power BI for data storytelling stems from the integration with different types of products along with the support option it provides to help integrate with other tools. Caching in Microsoft Power BI would improve the organization's performance.

Microsoft Power BI's Q&A feature impacted our company's data exploration efforts since it is an area used by many types of users, including those involved in management and analytics, as it helps with cross-filtering.

The product's real-time dashboard and data refreshing capabilities are good, but it freezes without showing any status during the data retrieval if the volume is high.

It is not possible to use the product's in-depth features since it requires many controls and user interfaces.

The product is mainly for managers who want to track work details.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1566945 - PeerSpot reviewer
Statistician / Data Scientist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Mar 18, 2024
Offers data visualization, including filtering data, creating graphs, and dashboards
Pros and Cons
  • "The sharing features are vital, especially the ability to share and test different shared dashboards."
  • "Better mapping capabilities and easier administration access would be beneficial, especially for understanding who has viewed reports."

What is our primary use case?

I use it primarily for some application services. It's primarily for government statistics.

I use it for visualization as well, mainly for filtering data, and creating graphs and dashboards.

How has it helped my organization?

Power BI helped me to improve the decision-making process. It was particularly useful when I had data in a table, and I was able to use it as a dashboard with filters for better insights.

What is most valuable?

The sharing features are vital, especially the ability to share and test different shared dashboards.

It's quite manageable and easy to learn. It took me about a month to learn how to use it effectively.

What needs improvement?

Better mapping capabilities and easier administration access would be beneficial, especially for understanding who has viewed reports.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable product but it could be improved to better suit the overall size of projects.

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. 

There are around 50 end users in my organization. We plan to increase the further usage.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support are not as easy to access as I'd like. I don't often find a direct portal to support. I end up looking up the internet. I would rate it one out of ten, but I would put it a five out of ten. 

I have to go and look up the internet. I sometimes just bring in expertise. I would prefer some tech support instead of bringing in someone else. 

I have to run a case. I want to have something easy and readily accessible. There is good stuff on the website, but it would be better if I could easily ring somebody. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've used Tableau, but now we primarily use Power BI.

Each has its advantages, but Power BI supports our needs effectively.

How was the initial setup?

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy to set up. 

We use it on the cloud. For us, deployment took six months.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is reasonable, at about 6.3 euros per user per month.

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend it for its features and cost-effectiveness. I find this product pretty okay. It works well for me. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Assistant Manager - Forensic Data Analytics at Grant Thornton
Real User
Mar 11, 2024
Intuitive, user-friendly, and enables to manage and share reports across different teams easily
Pros and Cons
  • "The product is intuitive and user-friendly."
  • "The solution struggles with large amounts of data."

What is our primary use case?

We use the tool for data analysis and reporting through dashboarding, identifying trends, and mapping.

What is most valuable?

The product is intuitive and user-friendly. It could be rolled out to anyone across the business. DAX is a good feature. The real-time dashboard updates are good. The ease of integration is good. We connect it to different databases. The clients we work with work on different databases. It is easy to manage and share Power BI reports across different teams and departments.

What needs improvement?

The solution struggles with large amounts of data. It has some limitations. Sometimes, we don't know if we have the full picture.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten. I haven't come across any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment is not difficult. It is relatively easy to maintain the product. For our needs, we need one person to maintain the tool.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have used MicroStrategy. Power BI is more user-friendly. When we roll it across the business, it's easier for the users to use. MicroStrategy can handle large amounts of data.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Esteban Fabiani - PeerSpot reviewer
Project and Consultant Manager at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Consultant
Feb 28, 2024
Offers comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and strong community support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Power BI is its ability to provide customized visualizations and insights tailored to specific business needs."
  • "Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds."

What is our primary use case?

Across retail, logistics, legal, finance, and more, I use Power BI to craft custom solutions. From analyzing sales to optimizing operations, Power BI helps me extract actionable insights for informed decision-making across diverse industries.

How has it helped my organization?

I'm working with a law firm that has hundreds of professionals working across various areas for different clients. They struggle to accurately track hours worked per client and compare profitability. With Power BI, I can integrate data from their ERP systems and create insightful reports. These reports not only show the hours worked per client but also compare profitability between clients and highlight KPIs. By providing clear and actionable insights, Power BI helps the firm make informed decisions quickly, leading to improved profitability and efficiency.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Power BI is its ability to provide customized visualizations and insights tailored to specific business needs. By offering a range of visualization options and customization capabilities, Power BI enables users to quickly analyze data and gain actionable insights. Depending on the preferences and requirements of the customer, different visualization styles can be utilized, from simple and standardized views to more colorful and dynamic charts and graphs.

What needs improvement?

Areas of Power BI that could be improved are the learning curve for developers who come from non-technical backgrounds. While Power BI is a powerful tool, mastering its development aspects, including coding and formulas, can be challenging for those without a technical background. Additionally, some users find the default visualizations in Power BI Desktop to be outdated and prefer more modern and customizable options. 

One additional feature I would like to see in Power BI is tighter integration with Power Apps. This would allow for easier development without extensive coding, making it more accessible for users who aren't familiar with technical aspects like JSON files or Visual Studio Code. Simplifying the development process would streamline workflow and enhance overall usability.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Microsoft Power BI since 2016.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of Power BI at around nine out of ten. It has been consistently reliable over the past year, and any bugs are quickly addressed by a supportive community.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Power BI is scalable, but its scalability depends on factors like the amount of data, infrastructure, and database type. For large BI data, other tools might be more suitable. However, Power BI offers great flexibility, and its scalability varies based on specific needs and circumstances.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support for Power BI is generally good, but it can be limited in handling diverse customer needs. While Microsoft technicians are highly knowledgeable, they may provide standard solutions based on their expertise, which might not cover all possible scenarios. Finding solutions often requires additional research, practice, and exploration of community resources. Overall, I would rate the support at a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

Deploying Power BI isn't difficult, but it requires time and experience. With regular updates and new features from Microsoft, staying current and understanding changes can be a continuous learning process. While it is manageable with experience, teaching someone from scratch would require significant time and effort.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of Power BI is very good. It is reasonable.

What other advice do I have?

Power BI has revolutionized our reporting and decision-making processes. Instead of spending hours manually working with static data in Excel, we now have dynamic information at our fingertips. With Power BI, we can quickly make queries, access answers, and generate reports in minutes. By efficiently extracting data from databases and creating visually appealing visuals, such as KPI dashboards, Power BI enables us to identify trends, compare data, and make informed decisions promptly. It streamlines the entire process, from data extraction to visualization, saving us time and providing valuable insights for effective decision-making.

My advice for someone looking to use Power BI would be to start with the Pro license, as it is usually sufficient for most users. If you are dealing with a large number of customers, consider consulting with a Microsoft partner to find the best licensing solution. Based on my experience, I would recommend Power BI to others. Overall, I would rate the product as a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Operations & BI Analyst at American Hospital Dubai
Real User
Apr 15, 2021
A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)
Pros and Cons
  • "Power BI is a complete ecosystem. It has an integrated ETL tool and good connectivity with applications such as Office 365 and SQL. There are also solutions for RPA, such as Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Power Apps. Power BI now has integration with Power Query, which has an AI feature for text analytics. Text analytics is a very good feature. This feature is also there in Tableau, but I like it in Power BI because you can write something like, "What is the total sale in the Eastern region?", and it will give you the answer. For example, when you have different types of user opinions, you just run one algorithm and you will have the output that provides the number of positive and negative responses. You can even have a dashboard with positive remarks. This feature has been introduced recently. Power BI supports the DAX and Power Query M languages. These languages are making Power BI very strong in data analytics, and you can do many types of analysis."
  • "It should be more user-friendly. There are very small or tiny icons that you need to move very carefully. If you go a little bit up and down, some of the values change. Its user interface should be improved. It should be like Tableau. Its performance is also slow and should be improved. I definitely feel some sort of speed issues with Power BI. The integration of Excel with Power BI would also be good."

What is our primary use case?

I am currently using it for my professional and training use. I am using the Power BI Premium per user recent scheme announced by Microsoft. In my current company, we are using Tableau.

What is most valuable?

I’m going to go cover my TOP 5 Features for getting you started on your own visualisations so you can be up and running and leveraging Power BI within your own business in no time at all. Power BI Desktop Sure you probably want to build some beautiful and interactive reports and dashboards to share all those insights from your data with your business, but perhaps lacking the experience that report designers, data queries specialists or Excel Power Users have? Well now all your end users can easily access data and build their own reports using a simple yet powerful interface, Power BI Desktop. Power BI Desktop is a free download which provides an excellent canvas for creating your own masterpiece’s or perhaps just a simple report or dashboard tile. Power BI Desktop with its monthly release cycle is constantly evolving with newly added features or enhancements that can ‘bring data alive’ often in just a few minutes or hours. Visibility Data is arguably one of most precious resource that businesses are generating today. The key aim to be able to manipulate and easily combine this valuable data with other datasets, and then have a simple way to gain a deeper understanding of their business. With data often residing across multiple systems and formats, a valuable resource that businesses need is to be able to collate the various datasets and generate different ways to visual and understand it. In order to identify trends and relationships which were not previously visible and help make those important DECISIONS that business need to make every day based on the right facts. With a deeper understanding that comes from interpreting data in a visual form, the data world has become even more important for a business to be able to leverage and gain the competitive edge it needs; so it’s no wonder that Microsoft’s BI can provide so much value with the data-shaping and modelling capabilities to unlock hidden insights. Custom Visualisations Every business has its own culture and way of doing things, sometimes the ‘standard way’ of doing something just doesn’t cut it and a need to customise it to make it work is needed. The same goes for visualisations that come as standard with Power BI tool, which for some may not provide the depth or complexity of visualisation that is needed in order to ‘bring data alive’. However by accessing the growing library of custom visualisations or even creating ones that meet a specific need is perhaps a way to find a competitive edge. Import Excel Data One of the recent improvements that was added was the ability to import data from Excel. It has a wizard for making it very straight forward so your Excel ‘Power User’s’ now have even greater functionality to make sense of the data. Power Q&A Have you wanted to be able to ask questions in your own language and have it answered? Now Power BI makes that very easy with the Dashboard Power Q&A and the underlying data models. You just start typing in your question and the data model provides the context and answer which can then be manipulated to suit your own visualisation needs.

What needs improvement?

Power BI is good with handling simple relationships between tables in a data model. But, if there are complex relationships between tables, that is, if they have more than one links between tables, Power BI might not handle them well. You need to create a data model carefully by having more unique fields so that Power BI does not confuse the relationships when it comes to complex relationships.


In most cases, you might not feel the need to configure and optimize visualizations in Power BI. But even if you do, Power BI does not provide many options to configure your visualizations as per your requirements. Thus, users have limited options for what they can change in visuals.


The user interface of Power BI is often found crowded and bulky by the users. It is in the sense that there are many icons of options that block the view of dashboard or report. Most users wish that the user interface or the report canvas was clearer with fewer icons and options. Also, creating scrolling dashboards is a native feature.


As we know, the expression language used to deal with data in Power BI is DAX. However, you can perform a lot of actions using the DAX formula in Power BI, it is still not the easiest language to work with. Sometimes the formulas you create work well in Power BI, sometimes they don’t. You can concatenate up to two elements but concatenating more than two elements needs nesting statements.


Power BI has a limit of ingesting data at a time which is approximately 2 GBs of data. If you wish to import and use data of even greater volumes, you need to extend your free version to a paid version of Power BI. Also, users have reported that Power BI takes a little more than usual time or even hangs while processing millions of rows and columns of data.


Usually, Power BI is the easiest to use BI tool if you are using it simply to import data and create reports. But Power BI is an entire suite having a lot of other interrelated tools. When the purpose of your use is more than just creating reports in Power BI Desktop, you need to learn and master several other tools like Gateways, Power BI Report Server, Power BI Services, etc.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I am currently using it for my personal training, and I didn't find any stability issues, but when it comes to big data, there may be some sort of issues where the system might hang.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of adding more users, there shouldn't be any issues or limitations. Currently, I am using it for my personal use.

For very big companies with large-scale data and many rules, there would be speed issues with Power BI. Therefore, I don't recommend Power BI at this level. For such organizations, Tableau is the best solution. I have tried Tableau in many companies with many nodes, and I found no speed issues with Tableau. So, I won't recommend Power BI for organizations where 2,000 or 4,000 computers are connected, and there are multiple branches with data coming from different countries.

How are customer service and support?

I contacted them for an installation issue related to the RPA Power Automate Desktop. I had downloaded this software, and I was trying to use it with Office, but there were some installation issues. I contacted Microsoft's technical team, and they logged in to my computer and fixed the issue.

Their support is very nice. They called me and then remotely connected to my computer through Teams. They gave me very good support, and I am perfectly satisfied with them.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I can mentions main difference between Power BI and tableau which is as under. Advantages of Tableau Here, are pros/benefits of using Tableau BI: •Less cost of training •Very fast and easy to create visualizations •Good customer support •Data Interpreter Story-telling ability •Tableau offers a feature of visualization •It helps you to combine shape & clean the data for analysis. •It helps you to handle a large amount of data. •Uses scripting languages like R & Python to avoid performance for complex table calculations. •Allows users to create reports, dashboards, and stories using Tableau Desktop. Advantages of Power BI Here, are pros/benefits of Power BI •Offers pre-built dashboards and reports for SaaS Solutions •Provide real-time dashboard updates. •Secure and reliable connection to your data sources in the cloud or on-premises •Power BI offers quick deployment, hybrid configuration, and a secure environment. •Data exploration using natural language query. •Feature for dashboard visualization •New features frequently added that are great for excel users. •Extensive database connectivity capabilities Q&A feature publish to the web. •integration with both Python and R coding to use visualizations. •Power Query provides many options related to wrangling and clean the data. •Post publishing the data into Power BI web service can schedule refresh without manual intervention. •Power BI backed by the superpower of with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Disadvantages of Power BI Here, are cons/drawbacks of Power BI •Dashboards and reports only shared with users having the same email domains. •Power Bl will never mix imported data, which is accessed from real-time connections. •Power BI can't accept file size larger than 1 GB. •Dashboard never accept or pass user, account, or other entity parameters. Disadvantages of Tableau Here, are cons/drawbacks of Tableau •Relatively high cost •No change management or versioning •It is expensive, BI, when compared to other tools. •Importing custom visualization is a bit difficult. •Not offers easy methods for embedding reports to other applications. •Tableau is suitable only for a large organization which can pay for licensing cost. •The tableau does not offer support for artificial intelligence and machine learning. •There is integration with other Microsoft products like Power Apps , Dynamics 365, Office 365, and Microsoft Flow, which uses Single Sign-On (SSO).

How was the initial setup?

Its initial setup is very simple. There is no issue at all. If you have everything set up on your computer, it takes only 10 minutes.

In terms of maintenance, Power BI does not require any maintenance, but the database behind Power BI requires some sort of maintenance. Power BI is like a tap. It is just providing what is in the tank. For clean water, you just need to clean the tank at the back. To get good visualizations, you need to clean your database, tabling structure, and data modeling. If you are doing all data modeling in Power BI, then data modeling requires some sort of maintenance.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Power BI comes in three levels – Desktop, Pro, and Premium. The Desktop level is free for individual users. Pro – The Pro plan costs $9.99 per user, per month and includes a mobile app, the ability to publish and share reports, a 1 GB model size limit, eight data refreshes daily, the ability to connect to over 100 data sources, embedded APIs and controls, AI visuals, data security and encryption, metrics for content creation and publishing and up to 10 GB per user maximum storage. Pro is available for free for companies that have the Microsoft 365 E5 solution. Premium (per user) – Microsoft launched this new pricing strategy that costs $20 per user, per month. It includes all of the features of the Pro plan, plus paginated reports, a 100 GB model size limit, 48 data refreshes daily, advanced AI features, XMLA endpoint read/write connectivity, data flows, the ability to analyze data stored in Azure Data Lake Storage, application lifecycle management and up to 100 TB of maximum storage. Premium (per capacity) – This plan starts at $4,995 per month per dedicated cloud compute and storage resource. It includes all of the features of the Premium per user plan, plus on-premise reporting, a 400 GB model limit, multi-location deployment management, Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) and autoscale add-on.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No, I am diehard fan and accredited professional of Microsoft technologies, so I have no other thought.

What other advice do I have?

I will suggest below guidelines to Power BI users. Limit the number of visuals in dashboards and reports According to Microsoft's Optimization guide for Power BI, placing many visuals in a single report slows report performance. Limit widget visuals to eight per report page and grids to one per page. Limit pages 30 points (cards: 1, gauges: 2, charts: 3, maps: 3, grids: 5). Limit tiles to 10 per dashboard. To improve Power BI report performance, remove unnecessary interactions between visuals By default, all visuals on a report page can interact with one another. For optimal report performance, interactivity should be minimized. Reduce the number of queries fired at the back end and improve report performance by disabling unnecessary interactivity. Enable Row-Level Security (RLS) Row Level Security restricts user access to certain rows in a database depending on the characteristics (role) of the user executing a query. With RLS, Power BI only imports data the user is authorized to view. Combining Power BI roles with roles in the back end can result in substantial performance gains. Test all roles before rolling out to production. Use Microsoft AppSource certified custom visuals Power BI certified visuals are AppSource visuals that have passed rigorous quality testing. Microsoft verifies that certified custom visuals have robust, high-performance code. Certified custom visuals are the only custom visuals that can be viewed in Export to PowerPoint mode and email subscriptions. Use preview feature of hierarchy slicers instead of custom visual If you need to show hierarchy in slicers, enable the preview feature provided by the Power BI desktop instead of using of a custom visual. Provide data categorization for Power BI reports (HBI, MBI, LBI) High Business Impact (HBI) data requires users to get a policy exception to share the data externally. Low Business Impact (LBI) and Medium Business Impact (MBI) data do not require exceptions. By using Power BI data sensitivity labels, you raise user awareness about required security and how reports should be shared inside and outside the organization. Use on-premises data gateway instead of Personal Gateway Personal Gateway takes data and imports it into Power BI. Enterprise Gateway (on-premises data gateway) imports nothing, which is more efficient when working with large databases. Use different Power BI gateways for Live Connection and Scheduled Data Refresh If the same gateway is used for Scheduled Data Refresh and Live Connection, Live Connection performance will slow down when Scheduled Data Refresh is active. Avoid this issue by creating separate gateways for Live Connection and Scheduled Data Refresh. Test custom visual performance on reports to ensure fast report load time; use an alternative visual if the chosen visual performs poorly Uncertified custom visuals are generally not tested by the Power BI team. Custom visuals can perform poorly when handling large datasets or complex aggregations. If a custom visual performs poorly, consider replacing it with a different visual. Limit complicated complex measures and aggregations in data models Push calculated columns and measures to the source where possible. The closer they are to the source, the higher the likelihood of improved performance. Create calculated measures instead of calculated columns. Use star schema to design data models. Use slicers sparingly Slicers are a great way of allowing users to navigate data, but they come at a performance cost. Each slicer generates two queries: one gets the data, and the other fetches selection details. Creating too many slicers negatively impacts performance. To evaluate which slicers are infrequently used, use the Filter pane and remove unnecessary slicers. Ensure the Power BI report and data source are in the same region With the tenant and data source in the same region, you can reduce network latency. The results are faster data transfer and faster query execution. Import only necessary fields and tables instead of entire datasets Ensure the model is as narrow and lean as possible. Power BI works on columnar indexes; longer and leaner tables are preferred. Ensure the cache update frequency aligns with the data source refresh frequency Cache update frequency should be set at similar intervals to data source refresh frequency. By default, the Power BI cache update frequency is set to one hour. If, for example, your data set refreshes only once per day, you should update the cache frequency accordingly. Use white or light background colors For users distributing printed reports, white or light backgrounds are printer friendly. Shorten numbers Don’t exceed three or four numerals when displaying numbers. Display measures to one or two numerals left of the decimal point and scale for thousands or millions. Use Report Tooltip pages to provide more context for the highlighted measure Report tooltips are a great way of sharing additional information on the metric. Use limited visuals in Report Tooltip. Ensure you select Tooltip field carefully (categorical or measure). Use templates (.PBIT files) to speed up and standardize report development instead of starting with an empty .PBIX Templates can be saved with custom color palettes and themes pre-incorporated. Templates ensure corporate branding is pre-applied to all pages. Templates ensure connections to commonly used data sources are already in place. Templates create commonly used DAX measures. Source: LinkedIn Use names that are meaningful to your business users or intended audience Power BI provides the ability to give aliases to report objects. Avoid ambiguity when naming columns and measures. Consider hiding unused columns in the data model. Source: LinkedIn Reduce queries Reduce the number of queries sent by Power BI using the settings for Slicers and Filters.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user

Pra mim, deve ser ultilizado com recursos um pouco mais simples para atender outros publicos, facilitando os usuarios a terem conhecimento sobre a plataforma.

Rohit Patel - PeerSpot reviewer
Generative AI Developer at Rack Ai Private Limited
Real User
Top 5
Jul 30, 2024
Useful for creating reports and dashboards
Pros and Cons
  • "What I liked most about the tool is that we can use text queries to create projects and modify columns according to our needs. There are hundreds of YouTube courses on how to use it."
  • "I found data cleaning in the solution to be quite difficult. If I could add a feature, I'd include Excel's Flash Fill function. This allows you to set a formula for one row and column and automatically apply it to thousands of rows, making data sorting much easier."

What is our primary use case?

During my internship, I used Microsoft Power BI to create reports for a project we were working on. I also made a dashboard to help a company grow its business.

What is most valuable?

What I liked most about the tool is that we can use text queries to create projects and modify columns according to our needs. There are hundreds of YouTube courses on how to use it. 

What needs improvement?

I found data cleaning in the solution to be quite difficult. If I could add a feature, I'd include Excel's Flash Fill function. This allows you to set a formula for one row and column and automatically apply it to thousands of rows, making data sorting much easier.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I found the tool to be a stable product. One of my favorite features is connecting a SQL database to the tool to generate real-time reports. I was part of a group of 80+ students, but only five of us, including me, were offered internships and could use Microsoft Power BI.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't contacted the solution's support yet. 

How was the initial setup?

Installing Power BI is easy—there are free and paid versions available. I used the free version, which you can download from the Microsoft Store and install, similar to installing an app on your phone.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I used the tool's free version. 

What other advice do I have?

I'd recommend Microsoft Power BI for report generation - it's great software. I rate it a nine out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power BI Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft Power BI Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.