MicroStrategy Reviews

We use it for reporting, it's enterprise-wide reporting. There are tons of different things, some scheduled by MicroStrategy. Those old-fashioned reports, PDFs, Excel, and even portfolio and task stuff. Works for many industries now, different business lines, finance, supply chain, etc.

MicroStrategy has become an obsolete product. It might still be around for another 10, 15, maybe even 20 years, but I wouldn't recommend using it for any specific use cases. Unless you already have a MicroStrategy license, in which case it might be worth sticking with MicroStrategy for cost reasons. However, I wouldn't buy new MicroStrategy licenses.

There are definitely some drawbacks. The biggest one is the complete lack of a community around MicroStrategy compared to other BI tools. This can be a huge problem from an IT department head's perspective. If a developer gets stuck on some task, they might spend hours or even days trying to solve a problem because there's no helpful information online. 

With tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker, you can easily find solutions and ask questions in forums or ChatGPT (OpenAI). It's almost impossible with MicroStrategy.

Another drawback is the lack of a talent pool. It's very difficult to find developers with MicroStrategy expertise. There are barely any online courses or tutorials available, and even searching for information can be frustrating. You won't find educational videos at the top of the search results; instead, you'll see stuff about Bitcoin investments. This lack of focus on development is a major downside. 

I've been quite disappointed with MicroStrategy's investments in recent years, with them prioritizing discounts over research and development.

So, in terms of functionality, MicroStrategy is alright. It's a solid BI tool and can handle most tasks you'd expect. The problem lies outside the tool itself. You need a strong community to learn from and keep up with the rapid development of BI tools. 

Unfortunately, MicroStrategy lacks that community support. You're either stuck figuring things out yourself or paying expensive fees to MicroStrategy consultants for help. This isn't the case with tools like Power BI or Tableau, where you can find experts readily available. In addition to other drawbacks, it's not cost-effective either. 

The on-premise version used to be the only option, which meant buying licenses for CPU units. While cloud migration with SkyLink in MicroStrategy Cloud makes scaling easier, it still requires initial setup and configuration. This button with Azure or AWS can take a couple of weeks, depending on your data sources and desired outcomes. Compared to other solutions where you can start quickly and iterate, MicroStrategy's approach might be seen as slower and less agile.

I have been working with this solution for ten years. I worked with the cloud version of MicroStrategy.

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten because MicroStrategy is generally stable, but every new version seems to have bugs.  

For scalability, I would rate the standard on-premises version, I'd rate a two out of ten. But the cloud version is a seven out of ten.

In Europe, I know of around 700 organizations. The US will have much more.

You can pay for customer service and get help with specific issues. They have different tiers of support, like first-line and so on. You submit a ticket and wait for a resolution. If it's simple, you might find some help. But for complex issues, they might just push it to the next product release.

So, overall, the support is pretty good. 

Positive

I currently use other tools like Business Objects, Power BI, SQL Server Reporting Services, and others.

I didn't choose MicroStrategy. It was already in place at my previous company, and I inherited it. 

It does require deployment, and with Azure's architecture, you need a central computing unit like MicroStrategy Intelligent Server. So, that must be installed and configured. 

Once it is set up, you can start integrating data into it and building dashboards. Setting this up takes time, but it has the advantage.

The advantage of this approach is the enterprise scale of the solution. You have time to carefully consider your implementation and follow a more waterfall-style approach, eliminating and minimizing errors. 

This is unlike some other solutions where you can start quickly with Excel files and move data into BI tools rapidly. While that's convenient for speed, it can lead to neglecting a solid, scalable approach for the future.

The deployment took around a couple of weeks. It takes around two weeks to configure everything. Moreover, setting up the project and defining the data sources and desired outcomes can also impact the timeline.

The Azure part has a publicly available flat pricing structure. But for the on-premises version, you negotiate directly with MicroStrategy. They're often willing to offer significant discounts, up to 80% off the original price. The pricing list itself is not publicly accessible, so it's a bit opaque.

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

I work for an airline and we are customers of MicroStrategy. 

The MicroStrategy semantic layer is a great feature that I haven't seen anywhere else. I also like the mobile applications that we're able to build with MicroStrategy's apps. The solution has very good all-round capabilities. I've implemented the HyperCard feature, introduced a couple of years ago, for embedding tags in my emails. It enables users to roll over a detail in the email and they can see airline performance. MicroStrategy is also excellent at providing connectors.

MicroStrategy needs to work on visualization and get closer to what Tableau or ThoughtSpot provides. They need to simplify the process involved when new objects are created. It currently requires updating the schema which takes time. In the next version, I'd like to see the inline processing of Python script that Tableau has and it would be great if they could introduce the Natural Language Processing feature that ThoughtSpot has implemented. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

The solution is scalable but time consuming. If I want to add an additional node into MicroStrategy it takes some time. We have around 200 MicroStrategy users. 

The customer support is great, I always get a timely response. 

Positive

The initial setup is simple. I use an on-prem implementation for all these tools and it's straightforward, particularly for a single note cluster.

MicroStrategy licensing is costly when you're rolling it out to 200 users. A license with Tableau costs the same as I pay for two MicroStrategy users. In order to keep costs down, I'm proposing that we use the data connector for MicroStrategy in Tableau. The company wants to move to one tool but I think we should keep the bare minimum of MicroStrategy with the semantic layer working with one or two architects and a few power users and expose the data connectors to Tableau so that the end-user has one tool, but we have two tools on the backend. 

We're probably going to move towards the MicroStrategy professional license scheme which provides flexibility and discounts.

We also use Tableau and I've had experience with ThoughtSpot. As a backend guy, I like MicroStrategy. As an end user, Tableau has a crisper visualization with a better color palette. On the other hand, Tableau generates a huge amount of log which is time-consuming to go through. That aspect is simplified in MicroStrategy where I can go to one place and see the error. Tableau doesn't provide any service unless you purchase their premium-level support whereas I have MicroStrategy on speed dial and I can call at any time to get help. On the other hand, everything has to be defined with MicroStrategy which is difficult whereas in a solution like ThoughtSpot, it's just a case of ensuring that all the keys are defined. The same thing that took a month to do using MicroStrategy was completed in three days using ThoughtSpot.

I recommend MicroStrategy for anyone looking at an enterprise-level solution. If an organization only requires localized reporting, they should go with Tableau. 

I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

I am a developer working with MicroStrategy, specifically focusing on tasks related to making cubes and viewpoints. Although I am not involved in solution architecture, I utilize MicroStrategy as an end user, working within its provided framework.

MicroStrategy saves time and money for repetitive tasks, streamlining certain processes within our organization.

The most valuable feature of MicroStrategy is the ability to make your own cubes and, from those, create viewpoints. This is particularly useful in data analytics where cube making goes hand in hand.

There is a need to improve the automatic generation of metrics in MicroStrategy, as currently everything must be done manually. 

Additionally, the hierarchy creation process in MicroStrategy could be improved.

I have been personally working with MicroStrategy for approximately 12 years.

I would rate the stability of MicroStrategy eight out of ten. The product is generally stable.

I rate the scalability of MicroStrategy as seven out of ten. We have faced some challenges, such as a lack of optimization in the data model, which affects its ability to scale efficiently.

The customer service and support for MicroStrategy are satisfactory. We have a certain agreement with them and have consultants available who respond promptly.

Positive

I didn't evaluate other solutions prior to using MicroStrategy.

I am not working directly with the BI architecture aspect of MicroStrategy, so the setup process comes to me already finished. Therefore, I cannot comment on whether it is simple or complex.

Based on my experience, I can recommend MicroStrategy for enterprise-level companies. It efficiently handles around five thousand users.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I'm working in a company, so we need to do the visualization for our client. Therefore, we are using MicroStrategy.

MicroStrategy's best feature is that it is a user-friendly tool.

There needs to be better visualization. It could be good to add new visualizations. Some of the visualizations are not there in MicroStrategy.

I have been using MicroStrategy for a year. I am a developer and user of the solution.

It is a stable solution.

In my company, our team consists of around 100 people. Though there are not so many members in my company, my team consists of around 100 members. Out of all my team members, around 70 people are using it.

I have contacted the technical support team of MicroStrategy. I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup was easy.

I recommend the solution to those planning to use it.

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

It's useful if you need to create dashboards that you check every day. Also, we can create a queue, but it will be updated every day with scheduled updates. We use MicroStrategy as an architect to call some tasks and procedures to update data or delete data. 

I am the user to check data in dashboards.

It's a good tool.

There is room for improvement in customer support. 

Another area of improvement is stability of this solution. 

I've been using MicroStrategy for one year.  

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. Sometimes Power BI is better than MicroStrategy.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. We have a small team, so we have around two end users using this solution. We use the solution regularly. 

We had some problems. We have technical support for my clients because it's a big company. So, our technical service connected to the technical service of MicroStrategy, and they decided how to fix some problems. For example, we needed to add the time sort MicroStrategy to update the end date of the full time, top dates view from a specific time.

We evaluated Oracle BI and Power BI.

We saw a return on investment.

It is not an expensive solution. We need to pay for a license.

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

We used the solution for reporting and data visualization. We used Google BigQuery to collect data and build dashboards and reports about production, manufacturing data, HR, people, positions, and headcounts. MicroStrategy was the platform where we built visualizations on dashboards, created standard reports in table format, and allowed some users to analyze the data.

The solution is a very good enterprise tool with excellent enterprise functionality for security and user access. It also works perfectly in distribution, with everyone getting their own reports. It is very complex, so you can do whatever you want. If you want to make some data limitations, you can do it. I also like the internal in-memory engine with the Symantec layer. This makes the solution pretty powerful.

The solution has a very non-logical user usage part. It has a library mode where users can access all the data, reports, and dashboards, but they also can be accessed from a platform. They have to log into the platform. The user experience is confusing for the users. MicroStrategy needs to define which one they will use. Some functionality isn’t available in library mode but is available in the portal. 

There should be Office integration. For example, if I do a presentation, then I should be able to add a chart to my presentation.

I have been using MicroStrategy for two years actively. Our company is using the latest version of this solution.

The solution is stable. We haven’t got into any trouble.
 

The solution is scalable. We have used the solution with 100s of users, and it has been good. We never saw any logging or problems.

We connected and wrote a question to them, which was answered in a few days. We checked the problem together and finally figured out it was something misunderstood.

I previously used SAP BusinessObjects BI, and it was not as fast as MicroStrategy with the same data set size. The solution moved smoothly and quickly based on the in-built engine and some queries. SAP BusinessObjects BI can be used if you have an SAP environment because they have the connectors. However, SAP BusinessObjects BI is not up to date today. SAP is using Elastic Cloud. Both tools are very similar, but SAP BusinessObjects BI has some limitations and graphical queries. It's not as beautiful as Tableau or Power BI, but it is good. In some cases, SAP BusinessObjects BI is slower than MicroStrategy, but it has more features and tools. MicroStrategy is better for SAP environments.

It is important to have a good user security strategy. When building a model, take some time to consider how you want to secure it; limited or accessible. The goal is to build a Symantec career, but it may be in the early stages. It's a good effort. However, step by step, over time, it will pay off. It is a good investment.

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

MicroStrategy is helpful for all aspects of the company's operations, including accounting, marketing, and human resources. It's an on-premises solution, but we are looking into migrating to Azure, but it won't be this year. We are looking forward to it in the future, but not at this time.

MicroStrategy has powerful data security features, which are crucial these days. For example, when users view data in MicroStrategy, they're only allowed to see a portion based on the permissions. When we evaluated other solutions like Power BI or Tableau, we found the security is very poor. They can't help us secure access to the data.

I would like to see more integration. 

We have been using MicroStrategy for 12 years. My company is French, so we use MicroStrategy for business intelligence because it's not an international solution. It's a French solution.

MicroStrategy is highly stable, and the security is okay. We have a few MicroStrategy servers, a dispatch log, and a load balancer, and we can add more on-premise solutions and servers to improve the performance. We are considering making a switch to an Azure solution eventually but not right now. We can tweak MicroStrategy's performance, and the load balancer works well.

MicroStrategy is scalable. We currently have 7,000 users, but we are changing the use case and plan to grow to 20,000 users over the next two years.

We have a regular call with MicroStrategy support once a week.

MicroStrategy is easy to set up.

MicroStrategy helped us with the migration. We didn't do that alone. The MicroStrategy team is 10 persons, including one leader and eight or nine engineers.

We pay annually for an annual subscription, and we renegotiate the price periodically. I don't know if it's cheaper than solutions like Tableau or Power BI. I don't remember comparing the cost. It's okay for us because we have a lot of users, and MicroStrategy gives us a reasonable price.

I rate MicroStrategy eight out of 10. We've tried other solutions and we're sticking to MicroStrategy. We started using MicroStrategy in 2010, and we've looked into switching to another solution twice, but both times our procurement department has found that MicroStrategy is better. It's a great tool.

Create and share reports and dossiers, included mobile application

It is first full BI solution in our company, desighnted and administrated by BI department wo internal companyes 

I cannot say that MicroStrategy is a very good solution because it's not simple for the administrator. It is very simple for the users, though. In version 11, we had a lot of bugs and a lot of problems. But in 2020 we migrated to a new version, MicroStrategy 2020, and now we have no problem with this solution and it works very well.

In my opinion, Power BI and Microsoft servers are more powerful and cheaper than MicroStrategy. But only MicroStrategy has a solution for mobile phones. Actually, not only MicroStrategy, but MicroStrategy's solution for mobile is very good.

For example, all our top directors and board members only use the mobile version. Of course, we have some problems between iPhone and Android versions. It's not simple to build one report for two mobile decisions. Of course MicroStrategy works perfectly on an iPhone, but with Android we have some problems because there are different Android versions and mobile phones.

So now we don't want to migrate to something else, so we will stay with MicroStrategy, and our plan is to migrate to the cloud version or update to MSTR 2021 Enterprise solution.

In terms of what could be improved in MicroStrategy, it does not have enough variance of visualization for building dashboards, etc. and I need to buy a custom visualization from  different companies. It would be good if it had greater analytics so we could build these visualizations by ourselves with scripts or if more visualization options will be added in future updates.

3 years totaly and 1 year on version 2020

We haven't had any bugs with the latest version of MicroStrategy.

We have limitations with MicroStrategy, but the limitations are from our servers because we have a lot of users, and a lot of reports, and of course we need the most ability from the system and from servers because we need to have a lot of memory and a lot of CPU. For example, every Monday at 9:00 in the morning, all our users, maybe 300 users, are running a lot of reports. It's not good for the system, but the system works. At the moment it is very hard for the servers, but MicroStrategy is a very stability system.

I don't have any down times. Of course, our decision to migrate to the cloud version is because I don't want to administrate the servers. It's not my problem. I want to administrate only MicroStrategy for users and reports.

I have not had any contact with tech support. We have our own team within our company for maintenance because we have one ticket to date that is open with the support team and we don't have answers for one week. I don't understand what's happening at times. But through this I can review the report or receive my problem. So of course I want to have an answer immediately.

Did you previously use a different solution and if so, why did you switch?

MicroStrategy is comparable to Power BI, Tableau or Qlik. There is no big difference.

But there is a difference in price, in cost. With MicroStrategy I need to buy licenses for the users only once. Whereas for Power BI, I need to pay every year or every month.

I really recommend the Power BI, but if I were to go to another company, and change my work, today I would want to continue working with MicroStrategy. I really recommend it.

At the moment, we have received some cases to log in with MicroStrategy for education. It is a big plus of MicroStrategy's that we have this possibility. MicroStrategy sites have a great  education part, with a lot of meetings, a lot of video, etc...

On a scale of one to ten, I would give MicroStrategy a 10.