Adaptive Insights vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Workday and Microsoft are both solutions in the Reporting category. Workday is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.2, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 7.9. Workday holds a 0.4% mindshare in RT, compared to Microsoft’s 26.7% 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

345 Views
232 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 321 Microsoft Power BI reviews

14,384 Views
11,351 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: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

April 2025

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Helped 849,686 peers since 2012

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

12th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Performance Management (8th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Data Visualization (11th), ESG Reporting Software (4th)

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

321

Ranking in other categories

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Reporting category, the mindshare of Adaptive Insights is 0.4%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 26.7%, up from 25.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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

James Balbach

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.

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 most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."

"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."

"Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools."

"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."

"It's very stable."

"Automated reporting."

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

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

More Adaptive Insights pros

"Helped identify bad data, enabling the corrections needed to the data for management."

"The most useful features are the ability to connect different databases to Microsoft BI and explore them. Once the database information has been extracted, you have the ability to construct indicators and dashboards from the information."

"We find the solution offers good stability."

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

"I have found the most valuable feature of this solution is the Natural Language tool."

"It's a powerful platform."

"It is very well integrated with other Microsoft products, including PowerApps and Excel, as well as Access, so it fits well into our workflow."

"The solution is easy to use."

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

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

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

"Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image."

"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."

"Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up."

"Better user interface (UI)."

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

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

More Adaptive Insights cons

"As Copilot and further integrations continue to develop, they will enhance Power BI's functionality."

"I would suggest improvements in visualization standards, particularly in customization and appearance."

"The initial installation is difficult."

"I'm not overly technical, and so I can't really speak to any shortcomings from a technical standpoint."

"I have a little problem with Synapse Analytics because it's very new. It's a product that has many capabilities, but it is not very well developed. I have to see the list of permissions from one object. I can't do this in Synapse. I have to search on the web for a solution because I don't have the tool for it."

"The graphic interface could be better."

"Although there are many visualizations, most of them are paid separately because they have been developed by private developers. The visualizations that come off the shelf are quite few."

"I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."

"It's affordable."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"We're charged a monthly subscription fee of 500 rupees per person."

"Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it."

"The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive."

"We have enterprise licenses and some of the other tools or features come as a package and others you have to purchase separately."

"Its pricing is great."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"I used the tool's free version."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

Senior Manager - BI Head at NVidia

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

40%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?

12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable. But there are other more affordable solutions that ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?

The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside sys...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Tableau vs Adaptive Insights

Compared 9% of the time

Jedox vs Adaptive Insights

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Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

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Databricks vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 7% of the time

KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Adaptive Insights

April 2025

Download Adaptive Insights product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

April 2025

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

April 2025

Free Report: Adaptive Insights vs. Microsoft Power BI

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