Alteryx vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Alteryx
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (1st), Data Science Platforms (3rd), Data Preparation Tools (1st)
Microsoft Power BI
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
302
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (1st), Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Predictive Analytics category, the mindshare of Alteryx is 25.5%, up from 24.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 33.3%, down from 33.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Predictive Analytics
Unique Categories:
Data Science Platforms
6.1%
Data Preparation Tools
36.4%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
24.4%
Reporting
27.9%
 

Featured Reviews

Victor Bethapudy - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 21, 2023
Feature-rich ETL that condenses a number of functions into one tool
In terms of improvement, the transition from the desktop to the cloud can be challenging. While the desktop piece works seamlessly within the company's security architecture, when you load workflows onto the cloud, the same connections don't translate due to firewall issues. It would be beneficial if this transition could be made more seamless and straightforward for users. The solution is already feature-rich and doesn't require any improvements. Their current versions are ahead of the curve. Their machine learning and predictive modeling features place them at the forefront. Some advanced features are more than what's needed for our regular business purposes.
RK
Mar 6, 2024
Provides interactive dashboard, visualization templates and on-the-fly filtering capability
In Power BI, there are two types of users: power users and light users. For those who don't have heavy use, we allow them to use the web version, which is quite light. They don't need to do much—they can click, and there are templates available that allow them to quickly connect to the data source. Even novice users can make use of it, and then they can apply the company-wide protection policies available. For example, we use other Microsoft suites, like Azure Information Protection, etc. So, it integrates well with our Microsoft suite. That's one feature that is quite useful for all users, and their learning curve is very less. It's about the integrated productivity suites. One of the things Power BI offers is, once connected, it provides tools for cleaning the data, shaping it for analysis, or transforming the data. For example, a user wants to load a comma-separated values (CSV) file and filter some of the data, focusing probably on creating reports based on two columns. It offers on-the-fly filtering capability, allowing them to clean by just removing unnecessary parts and focusing on the areas the user intends to create reports on. Then, if they want to perform calculations based on only those two columns or say they want to find all the customers who have contributed revenue of more than two million and have been with us for three years, these kinds of ad hoc reports can be quickly analyzed. This is for a novice user. For an advanced user who needs to build relationships between data, that kind of modeling is available; they can take two different data sources, extract, and manipulate relationships between these different Excel sheets or data sources, and then match and append the data. It provides that transformation capability. Other tools also provide this, but because it is well integrated, and for those who are familiar with Microsoft Excel, it feels very familiar. Some of the features are interactive as well. The dashboards are quite interactive, providing visualization templates quickly. Of course, there are plenty of other tools, but Power BI helps to integrate with our internal productivity tools. People are familiar with it, and it offers all the essential capabilities other tools provide in terms of data cleaning, transformation, or data modeling.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The connectors are a very good feature."
"Alteryx effectively visualizes the flow of data and what happens at each stage. I also like that it's a no-code solution. I also like that you can troubleshoot certain parts of the workflow by putting them in a sandbox."
"The product is very stable and super fast, five-star. It's significantly more stable than it's nearest competitor."
"The modeling features are very good."
"The most valuable feature of Alteryx is its performance. It is a powerful solution."
"Predictive models, which are easy to use, and help a lot with fast design and deployment​."
"I like the fact that you can easily blend data from different platforms."
"The tools are built-in. You just plug and play, drag and drop, once you understand how to use the tools, it is easy."
"I like data modeling. You can connect with your database, which is quite useful for me. It is a good tool if you have a large amount of data and you want to gather different data and interconnect it. The Power Query functionality is quite an interesting feature. If you have a query in Excel, you can also copy your query and run it in Power BI. Its dashboard is also very nice and not complicated. You don't need to be a developer to be able to use it. I am not an IT guy, and it is quite easy to use for somebody who is not an IT person."
"I like the fact that Power BI lets me use Excel data. At least 90% of my state data is in Excel spreadsheets. Having the ability to just attach a spreadsheet as a data source is very, very important. It's also good for training and teaching. Sometimes you don't always have access to a live production database, so having a spreadsheet with sample data is always nice."
"It provides good visibility."
"It is really flexible. The charts and reports are really nice. You have the flexibility of self-service."
"We have found the solution to be stable."
"Connectivity, installation, and configuration are pretty fast and seamless compared to Cognos."
"The scalability overall has been quite good."
"Microsoft BI is scalable."
 

Cons

"It should have Linux support. It currently supports only Windows. It does not support any other platform. Its price should also be lower. Their US partner management program is actually unresponsive. One of the reasons why we don't have a formalized partnership plan with them is because their partner management team is atrociously unresponsive. This is something that they need to change."
"I'd like it to be easier to work with PDF."
"I mostly used it for flat files, but I have many colleagues who reported that to tune a query, in case they want to directly connect to the database, there is no option to optimize the performance of the query, as we have in Informatica."
"Lacks an open source edition which would be helpful."
"There have been some issues with licensing, particularly with the increased prices. This has led some companies, including ours, to consider reducing the number of licenses or potentially discontinuing their use of Alteryx."
"It's a technical product and those that don't have proper training will have to deal with a steep learning curve."
"There are a few imputation techniques which they really need to include."
"Alteryx can improve the model management and deployment processing of large workloads."
"I would like to see more visualization options."
"The one thing that I noticed specifically was the graphical features, and some of the analytical features. They were stronger on the Tableau side."
"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."
"Microsoft BI has its own challenges in terms of user interface and how quickly somebody can learn how to use it."
"Maybe they can enhance the UI a bit. Right now, it's very basic, I would say, compared to the MicroStrategy or Qlik."
"The limitations within Microsoft Power BI include the volume of data it can handle, as there's a cap on the number of rows you can keep. When you pull your data and build your models, you're restricted by this row limit. Additionally, certain SSRS features are deprecated, which can be a drawback for users who rely on those capabilities."
"The solution could improve by providing more free visuals. A lot of them are very nice but you have to purchase them."
"Right now, their premium pricing is keeping us out of the premium market. The premium price per user just doesn't make sense for us, but we haven't reached the limit of 500 users to justify the premium."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license price of the solution is expensive."
"Its price should be lower. The key thing that we see is that talking about ROI is an important element at the time of purchase. Cost becomes a factor in every discussion. Justifying the ROI for these kinds of workflows is always a challenge, and the only way to counter the challenge is by addressing the pricing."
"​Very transparent.​"
"The cost of the solution could be reduced."
"If one is a high price, and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price as a one. The tool is expensive."
"Alteryx is an expensive solution."
"A designer and scheduler for $13K/year in total is pretty much earning you the money back in time and in other resources."
"Alteryx isn't extortionately expensive, but it's not cheap either."
"It depends upon the tier of your Office 365 subscription. On E5, which is a Microsoft Azure subscription, you get it for free. If you are on a lower tier, you can subscribe for $10 a month per user, which is really cheap."
"I would rate them 4 out of 5 for their current pricing. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing fees."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure."
"The premium licensing is approximately $5,000 per month which is pretty expensive."
"The solution's pricing is medium."
"It is a cheap solution for our needs."
"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription."
"Our license is paid yearly and we have found that we have to be careful not to over-extend our usage in order to avoid upgrading our capacity plan."
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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
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Educational Organization
38%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Learn More

 

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.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.