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Altair RapidMiner vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Altair RapidMiner
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (2nd), Data Science Platforms (7th)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
321
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Altair RapidMiner is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 14.9%, down 18.8% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 21.1% mindshare, down 22.0% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Gopi Manoj Vuyyuru - PeerSpot reviewer
An open-source software tool for data and text mining with an excellent built-in data tuning feature for achieving better accuracy
I would advise new users to remember that RapidMiner requires building your pipeline. You need to start from scratch, which includes loading the data, cleaning it, making visualizations, and training the model and is not fully automated. I wouldn't thoroughly recommend it if you don't have working knowledge. There are some support articles and built-in hints, but platforms like DataRobot, which are fully automated, might be better for you if you're starting. Learning RapidMiner as a beginner is straightforward. You need to understand how a model works, know the different stages involved in modelling, and the importance of cleaning data. RapidMiner has a learning platform where you can learn the basic modules and how things work. They also offer certifications if you complete courses and exams. It's a good option for beginners to thoroughly learn about different models and the modelling stages. Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Shoury Priyanshu - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless data aggregation with some outdated visual elements hindering user appeal
Real-time data integration is an area for improvement. Although I've worked on several solutions involving real-time integration, it's not very user-friendly and often lags, especially with over a million data rows. This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today. There are challenges with scalability, requiring multiple pages in dashboards to manage these issues. Visualization could be improved as it appears outdated. Users, especially newcomers, find it unappealing and not user-friendly.

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 RapidMiner is that it is code free. It is similar to playing with Lego pieces and executing after you are finished to see the results. Additionally, it is easy to use and has interesting utilities when preparing the data. It has a utility to automatically launch a series of models and show the comparisons. When finished with the comparisons you can select the best one, and deploy it automatically."
"The data science, collaboration, and IDN are very, very strong."
"It's helpful if you want to make informed decisions using data. We can take the information, tease out the attributes, and label everything. It's suitable for profiling and forecasting in any industry."
"The solution is stable."
"The GUI capabilities of the solution are excellent. Their Auto ML model provides for even non-coder data scientists to deploy a model."
"RapidMiner is very easy to use."
"The documentation for this solution is very good, where each operator is explained with how to use it."
"Using the GUI, I can have models and algorithms drag and drop nodes."
"You can integrate Microsoft Power BI with various other solutions like Intune."
"Technical support has been great."
"As it was my first time using Power BI, I can say that it was fairly easy to learn, especially if you already know BI-type tools."
"It seems stable. I haven't heard of any difficulties from my clients that utilize Power BI."
"The reports are easy to create."
"The DAX coding language is good for creating formulae."
"It is useful for bringing visualization to data. It calculates counts, ratios, etc."
"The solution overall is very useful. The reports that are generated and the reporting functionality management are beneficial."
 

Cons

"RapidMiner isn't cheap. It's a complete solution, but it's costly."
"About twenty-five percent of my problems involve image processing, and I found RapidMiner lacking in this domain. While we work on OCR and similar tasks, RapidMiner hasn't been as engaged in that field as other models. Some other models also support email processing, but RapidMiner doesn't offer this feature."
"I would appreciate improvements in automation and customization options to further streamline processes."
"One challenge I encountered while implementing RapidMiner was the lack of documentation. Since there aren't as many users, finding resources to learn the tool was initially difficult. To overcome this hurdle, I believe RapidMiner could improve by providing more tutorials tailored for new users."
"The server product has been getting updated and continues to be better each release. When I started using RapidMiner, it was solid but not easy to set up and upgrade."
"Many things in the interface look nice, but they aren't of much use to the operator. It already has lots of variables in there."
"I would like to see more integration capabilities."
"I think that they should make deep learning models easier."
"We would like improvements made to the paginated reports so that it produces quality similarly to SSRS."
"The visual outlet or the visualization aspect can be improved because the settings piece is quite problematic. It requires a lot of time to set the visuals and check. It is quite fiddly to change all the settings and font sizes. It just needs better ability in terms of using templates or visualization templates to get the vision. Our users always benchmark based on the product, and they don't appreciate everything under the bonnet. The only rating is based on the actual reports in the settings for the dashboard. They should make it look a bit funky and a bit more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. It is quite a fiddly tool, but other than that, it is pretty slick. Because it is community-driven, the marketplace tends to be changing forever. You get the standard visualizations, and you've also got all other marketplace visualizations that require you to spend a bit more money and purchase things in the marketplace. With certain visualizations, there is no longevity. I had used certain visualizations, but they discontinued them, and I had to rebuild my reports, which is obviously very frustrating. There should be some sort of stabilization around how the marketplace visuals impact the users when they expire."
"I would suggest improvements in visualization standards, particularly in customization and appearance."
"The solution could improve the mobile application design. It is difficult to use compared to the desktop version."
"I would like it to be a little bit more secure when I'm using the design feature on my desktop. For example, to have the ability to set up security passwords for opening the file. Currently, they don't have that. Tableau, for example, has a visual way of doing data processing steps, whereas the Power BI system still has some code, although it is very low code. It would be great to have the kind of view that Tableau has."
"I believe Power BI could improve by making data tables and databases easier to handle, especially for non-programmers who may not be familiar with languages like Python. Simplifying these aspects would enhance the usability and accessibility of Power BI for a broader range of users."
"Its setup and support should be improved. We would like to see more material for developers that provides clear explanations about how we can do data mining by using Microsoft BI. It would also be good if we can connect a feature to other customized machine learning solutions."
"The visualization aspect, while being the most visible to business users, also happens the be the weakest point in the entire Microsoft BI stack."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Although we don't pay licensing fees because it is being used within the university, my understanding is that the cost is between $5,000 and $10,000 USD per year."
"For the university, the cost of the solution is free for the students and teachers."
"I'm not fully aware of RapidMiner's price because we had licenses provided, but from my analysis, it's moderately priced, not too high or too low. It's worth the investment."
"I used an educational license for this solution, which is available free of charge."
"The client only has to pay the licensing costs. There are not any maintenance or hidden costs in addition to the license."
"The price for this solution is reasonable. However, there is an additional cost if you want to publish the dashboard privately."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"There are a few options available for purchasing a license. Typically the number of users you have will determine the price of the license. The more users you have the more you will pay."
"I am satisfied with its price. Its price is very less as compared to Tableau and QlikView."
"Its pricing is reasonable for the desktop stuff, but for enterprise-level, it is a little expensive."
"Compared to what's available on the market, I think we pay a fair price."
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Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 4, 2015
Comparison of SAP BO, Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, Microsoft, OBIEE and Pentaho
1. SAP BO/BI Enterprise scalability Security Ease of use Semantic layer 2. Tableau Visualization Data discovery Turnaround time 3. IBM Cognos Enterprise scalability Security In-memory feature 4. MS BI - Flexibility 5. Pentaho - Open source but still enterprise grade 6. QlikView Data…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
30%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about RapidMiner?
RapidMiner is a no-code machine learning tool. I can install it on my local machine and work with smaller datasets. It can also connect to databases, allowing me to build models directly on the dat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for RapidMiner?
I started with a trial version. We are likely to purchase a license, which may offer additional features.
What needs improvement with RapidMiner?
Currently, I am unsure of all the AI features available in Altair RapidMiner, particularly advanced AI capabilities like neural networks and deep learning. It would be beneficial if the platform co...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Is Power BI a complete platform or only a visualization tool?
Power BI is an advanced visualization tool oriented to big data with a very complete set of widgets to visualize information, control users accessing information, the configuration of governance po...
How does Oracle OBIEE compare with Microsoft BI?
Oracle OBIEE is great in allowing design and creativity per the individual needs of the organization. Dashboards are fully customizable and very user-friendly. This solution is very stable. Oracle ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
SSRS, SSAS, MSBI, MS Reporting Services, Microsoft BI Tools, Microsoft Big Data, Power BI Pro, MS BI
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PayPal, Deloitte, eBay, Cisco, Miele, Volkswagen
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Alteryx, Altair, SAP and others in Predictive Analytics. Updated: May 2025.
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