Adaptive Insights vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Workday and Microsoft are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #25, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Workday holds a 1.8% mindshare in RT, compared to Microsoft’s 13.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Workday users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Adaptive Insights

Read 18 Adaptive Insights reviews

4,691 Views
1,173 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 331 Microsoft Power BI reviews

32,121 Views
13,170 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Adaptive Insights

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Adaptive Insights and Microsoft Power BI are key competitors in the financial planning and analytics category. Microsoft Power BI holds a competitive advantage due to its extensive data analytics features and integration capabilities within the Microsoft ecosystem, notwithstanding pricing differences.

Features: Adaptive Insights integrates seamlessly with multiple financial systems, focusing on budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting. It supports instant consolidation, corporate structure updates, and integrates with MS Office for seamless reporting. Microsoft Power BI excels in data visualization and analytics, adeptly integrates with various data sources, and is user-friendly with features like Power Query and interactive dashboards.

Room for Improvement: Adaptive Insights could enhance its user interface for better navigation and expand its analytical functions beyond financial scenarios. It may also improve its integration with non-financial systems. Microsoft Power BI can further refine its user training resources, increase data handling efficiency especially with larger datasets, and enhance mobile capabilities for on-the-go reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Power BI is easy to deploy, especially for organizations already utilizing Microsoft products, complemented by robust online support resources. Adaptive Insights, while offering a more bespoke deployment for financial advisory purposes, provides accessible support but lacks the quick integration benefits seen with Microsoft solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Adaptive Insights generally requires a higher initial investment but offers a notable ROI thanks to its advanced financial management features. Microsoft Power BI, with its flexible pricing models starting as low as free for basic use and scaling to $20 per user for premium services, is an economical choice for businesses prioritizing dynamic data visualization without high upfront costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: June 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

June 2026

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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

Adaptive Insights

Ranking in Reporting

25th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (10th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (5th), Data Visualization (20th), ESG Reporting Software (14th)

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

331

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 13.2%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Reporting Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI	13.2%
Adaptive Insights	1.8%
Other	85.0%

Reporting

Featured Reviews

Andrew Rosenberg

Adaptive Planning Manager at Alight

Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

Read full review

Hemanthreddy Vakiti

Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions

Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The system has allowed us to take more than 90 spreadsheets and combine them into one system which automatically calculates based on assumptions, dimensions, etc."

"Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed."

"More accurate, reliable, and timely forecasting."

"Our organization is able to use Adaptive to complete a major majority of our monthly management and quarterly Board reports, and by refreshing reports and pages automatically, it creates the monthly report package with little to no manual staff work."

"Adaptive saves us huge hours in budgeting, for each roll-up it saves us two hours at least, and we usually have more than 20 roll-ups."

"We have gone from an organization that looked backwards at financials and had a one-time annual budget to an organization that looks forward, has rolling forecasts, long-term planning, metrics, and push button reporting."

"It has helped us to automate a lot of our processes."

"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."

More Adaptive Insights pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is real-time report tracking."

"I can now use my time in analyzing the outcome, rather than preparing the figures and cleaning up the data."

"We are able to collaborate on things and get insightful data visualizations."

"Our most valuable features are the dashboard and the reporting feature because, before that, our organization used to only use Excel."

"Technical support is quite responsive."

"We like the solution's ease of use, functionality range and ability to be quickly implemented."

"Microsoft BI is easy to use and to design. I found Microsoft BI a lot easier than Tableau."

"This solution is a useful tool for the business and experts, with plenty of features, and I have found it very helpful in terms of data presentation."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."

"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."

"Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect needs work."

"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."

"We do have issues getting information on our customer success turnover."

"Pricing can be made better affordable to SMEs. Every year price increase is an issue."

"It's complex; thinking about the business models and capabilities in Adaptive."

"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."

More Adaptive Insights cons

"The UI looks awkward once the graphs have been generated in the console. This is what Microsoft can work on."

"The user interface could be a bit more intuitive so that it's a bit easier to use."

"Lacks the ability to copy data from BI into PowerPoint."

"Sometimes while developing, the front end is not easily customizable and it has limitations. We cannot go and do any UI we want. We have to stick to the limitations of the product."

"I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions."

"When it comes to improvement, I would say there could be more tutorials for students in universities who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be just for students in universities. It might also be for the people who use it in the real world."

"The solution could improve the mobile application design. It is difficult to use compared to the desktop version."

"There is room for improvement in terms of pricing for the solution."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."

"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."

"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."

"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."

"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."

"It's affordable."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."

"I think it's a good price, from what I've heard. I know it's competitive with other Power BI tools."

"Power BI is subscription-based, and you have three options. The Pro edition, which is the standard one, is about $9 per user. The Premium edition, which provides AI and cloud capabilities but at a limited size, is for small to medium enterprises. It is about $20 per user. For large enterprises, such as manufacturing facilities, there is an option for the capacity. The capacity subscription is about $4,000 per capacity level. They also have an option for the on-premises version, but it is not common to see someone going for the on-premises version. The on-premises version requires a specific license that is attached to SQL Server. I believe it is about $17,000, but I'm not sure about it."

"The price for this solution is reasonable. However, there is an additional cost if you want to publish the dashboard privately."

"The price of the solution can be expensive if you want to synchronize your data more."

"The solution's pricing is medium."

"All of the licenses are on an annual basis, but Microsoft will amortize it to an extent. If it's five years, they'll include the possible interest they might have the following year. Ideally, their licensing scheme is an annual license, but they make it easier for some of our clients to take a five-year license but package everything inside for them to buy the license for five years."

"In general, Microsoft BI's price is lower compared to Alteryx."

"Pricing is a big advantage that Power BI has over Tableau. Power BI is three or four times cheaper than Tableau. For my personal use, I will definitely prefer a $20 monthly fee of Power BI rather than a $70 monthly fee of Tableau. If you pay altogether for Power BI, they give you a discount, whereas, with Tableau, there is no discount. There are three versions of Power BI: Free, Pro, and Premium. The Premium version comes with a lot of things. There is no extra or hidden fee. You pay every month, and the software is with you. If you upgrade, there will be some extra charges."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Construction Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	136
Midsize Enterprise	59
Large Enterprise	171

Questions from the Community

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Seeking lightweight open source BI software

There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...

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Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?

Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...

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How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?

Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...

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Comparisons

Infor dEPM vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 7% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 5% of the time

Planful vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 4% of the time

Oracle Hyperion vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 4% of the time

Longview Analytics vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 4% of the time

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Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 16% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 12% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

QlikView vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 2% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

June 2026

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

June 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning

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

Overview

Adaptive Insights is a cloud-based financial planning and analysis software that helps businesses streamline their budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.

With its intuitive interface and powerful analytics, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and drive business performance.

Workday

Microsoft Power BI is a powerful tool for data analysis and visualization. This tool stands out for its ability to merge and analyze data from various sources. Widely adopted across different industries and departments, Power BI is instrumental in creating visually appealing dashboards and generating insightful business intelligence reports. Its intuitive interface, robust visualization capabilities, and seamless integration with other Microsoft applications empower users to easily create interactive reports and gain valuable insights.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday

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

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

June 2026

Free Report: Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.

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