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Alteryx 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Alteryx offers a high ROI with reduced manual effort, improved efficiency, and cost savings despite its high price.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI enhances productivity with ease of use, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and improved data analysis, boosting decision-making.
Tasks that earlier took hours in Excel or SQL are now completed in minutes.
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
Alteryx helps familiarize managers with artificial intelligence-driven possibilities.
Chief Information Officer at granistr
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
I have seen a return on investment with Microsoft Power BI, including money saved and fewer employees needed.
Consultant at National Australian Bank
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Alteryx support is reliable with an active community, though some users experience slow responses without premium access.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Power BI's support is mixed, with variations in responsiveness and effectiveness depending on user needs and resources.
I contacted customer support once or twice, and they were quick to respond.
Experience Technocrat driving IT initiatives at WISDOMBOWL
The customer service was not good because we weren't premium support users.
Senior Capacity Planner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Customer support is good since I've had no issues and can easily contact representatives who respond promptly.
Chief Information Officer at granistr
The significant drawback I notice is that Microsoft's size makes it hard to get specific change requests addressed unless they involve a bug.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
The support is good because there is also a community available.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Alteryx scales well, managing large data and users across departments, though expansion may raise cost concerns.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Power BI is praised for scalability, cloud integration, and flexibility, but licensing and large datasets present challenges.
Alteryx is scalable for most enterprise analytics and data preparation workloads.
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
Alteryx is scalable, and I would give it eight out of ten.
Experience Technocrat driving IT initiatives at WISDOMBOWL
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Alteryx is praised for stability and efficiency, handling large datasets well, with minor bugs rarely affecting performance.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Power BI is reliable for most reporting needs, though it can slow down with large datasets and network issues.
I didn't need to reach out to Alteryx for support because available documents usually provide enough information to resolve issues.
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
I have not encountered any lagging, crashing, or instability in the system during these three months of usage.
Legal Coordinator at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
I have not noticed anything with the product itself, but with some of the connectors they have provided, there are some issues.
Development Lead at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Alteryx could benefit from better visualization, integration, user-friendliness, pricing, large dataset performance, cloud integration, and documentation improvements.
Users seek improved mobile compatibility, licensing, real-time data, advanced analytics, ease of use, and flexible design in Power BI.
The tool could include more native connectors, such as for global ERPs, instead of requiring additional fees for these connections.
Legal Coordinator at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
The support structure changed; initially, we received great support, however, it later became less reliable due to licensing issues and a tiered support system.
Senior Capacity Planner at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The additional features that Alteryx needs to work on to make it more competitive include better collaboration and easier integration through API.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Microsoft updates Power BI monthly based on user community feedback.
Executive Director, Decision Support at Community Health Network
 

Setup Cost

Alteryx offers powerful analytics for enterprises, but costs are high; discounts and careful budgeting are recommended to maximize ROI.
Microsoft Power BI provides flexible pricing options, offering free, Pro, and Premium plans for individuals, teams, and enterprises respectively.
The price is very high, with licensing typically starting around five thousand dollars plus user per year.
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
Alteryx is more cost-effective compared to Informatica licenses, offering savings.
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
It has a fair price when considering a larger-scale implementation.
Legal Coordinator at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Responsable du département Projets et Applications at CHD Vendée
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
Senior Manager, Strategy & Consulting at Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
Business Development Director at a tech consulting company with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

Alteryx provides an intuitive, codeless interface for data blending, predictive analytics, and automation, enhancing workflow efficiency and integration.
Microsoft Power BI offers strong data visualization, seamless integration, and customization, making it ideal for interactive, collaborative report creation.
Alteryx not only represents data but also supports decision-making by suggesting the next steps.
Chief Information Officer at granistr
Analysts who do not have any coding experience can still work on the transformation and preparation of data, which is quite useful.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
Alteryx includes built-in tools such as drive time analysis and linear regression, which are much harder to achieve in standard BI tools such as Power BI or Tableau.
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
Corporate HR Financial Controller at STMicroelectronics Holding
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
To reduce the need for highly skilled personnel, we can engage someone who is just familiar and has a basic understanding of Microsoft Power BI, while AI can handle the major tasks through either agent AI or requirement analysis.
Senior Technical Service Engineer Expert at Fujitsu
 

Categories and Ranking

Alteryx
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (6th), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
329
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. Alteryx is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 7.6%, down 22.8% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 9.3% mindshare, down 21.8% since last year.
Predictive Analytics Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Alteryx7.6%
Anaplan6.9%
SAP Analytics Cloud6.7%
Other78.8%
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI9.3%
Tableau Enterprise6.7%
Amazon QuickSight3.7%
Other80.3%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rajneesh Prajapati - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Rpa Consultant at Accely Consulting
Time-saving workflows have transformed data preparation and predictive analysis for my team
Some of the best features Alteryx offers are its no and low-code capabilities. It delivers massive time-saving and includes spatial and predictive analysis. Alteryx includes built-in tools such as drive time analysis and linear regression, which are much harder to achieve in standard BI tools such as Power BI or Tableau. In addition to these features, Alteryx provides built-in spatial tools that can calculate drive time and location-based insights with minimal effort through drag-and-drop spatial tools, low complex coding, faster, and more accurate results. Linear regression predicts sales based on marketing spend, estimates costs based on usage, and identifies trends in historical data. Alteryx has positively impacted my organization by saving time, improving accuracy, and enabling better decision-making. Using Alteryx, complex tasks such as data cleansing, joining datasets, drive time analysis, and linear regression can be done much faster compared to manual Excel or SQL work. This reduces dependency on manual effort and lowers the risk of human error. Drive time analysis helps my organization make better location-based decisions, such as identifying optimal service areas or improving customer reach.
Antonio Flor - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Anaplanner at Chaucer Group
Data integration has improved reserving and expense control while collaboration drives fast dashboards
Regarding drawbacks or weak points in Microsoft Power BI, it may not be directly related to the tool itself, but with our architecture, as we couldn't get a service account, which is an email address that has no relationship with the employees, just to establish the connection with Anaplan. We couldn't get it to work on SSO, so we use an employee account which could be a point of weakness, meaning if the person leaves, that connection will break. If the person goes on holiday and we need to refresh, we have to change the connection as well, but we have to live with that since we're not using SSO on the service account. Regarding the natural language processing feature, we're trying to avoid using it too much because it can slow down the connection, so as much as possible, we try to build the logic and any transformation in Anaplan, and then deliver an end product to Microsoft Power BI.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Predictive Analytics solutions are best for your needs.
884,328 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user79932 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business135
Midsize Enterprise58
Large Enterprise166
 

Questions from the Community

What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
One of the differences is that with Alteryx you can use it as an ETL and analytics tool. Please connect with me directly if you want to know more.
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
Alteryx is an extremely easy and flexible data tool, flexible in terms of drag and drop toolset and also has python, R integrations if your team requires this. It can handle over 2 billion rows of...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Alteryx and IBM SPSS Modeler?
I am not familiar with IBM SPSS Modeler, therefore, I cannot compare these two products. Regarding Alteryx I can say the following: - An excellent desktop tool for Data Prep and analytics. - Featu...
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

AnalyticsIq Inc., belk, BloominBrands Inc., Cardinalhealth, Cineplex, Dairy Queen
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 vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: March 2023.
884,328 professionals have used our research since 2012.