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KNIME vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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
7.9
KNIME offers substantial ROI through low costs, ease of use, and a transparent licensing model, enhancing productivity and cost-efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Power BI is cost-effective, user-friendly, and efficient, enhancing BI capabilities and saving time and money.
In a world surrounded by data, tools that allow navigation of large data volumes ensure decisions are data-driven.
Power BI is easy to deploy within an hour, providing robust security against data leaks.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
KNIME's support is efficient; users benefit from active community forums, though direct support has mixed reviews due to time zones.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Power BI customer service is responsive and effective, but users frequently rely on forums for quicker solutions.
While they cannot always provide immediate answers, they are generally efficient and simplify tasks, especially in the initial phase of learning KNIME.
The support is good because there is also a community available.
Unfortunately, with Microsoft, you must accept the product as it is.
We have a partnership with Microsoft, involving multiple weekly calls with dedicated personnel to ensure our satisfaction.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
KNIME scales well on servers but may struggle with desktops, requires licenses for better scalability, and supports big data extensions.
Sentiment score
7.0
Microsoft Power BI is scalable, integrates well with Azure, but faces challenges with large datasets and concurrent users.
As more data is processed, performance issues may arise.
With increasing AI capabilities, architectural developments within Microsoft, and tools like Fabric, I expect Power BI to scale accordingly.
You expect only a small percentage of users concurrently, but beyond a thousand concurrent users, it becomes difficult to manage.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
KNIME is praised for stability and efficiency with large files, though performance may vary depending on hardware and updates.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Power BI is stable and reliable, excelling with smaller datasets but may need resources for larger ones.
In terms of stability, there's no data loss or leakage, and precautions are well-managed by Microsoft.
It is very stable for small data, but with big data, there are performance challenges.
We typically do not have problems with end-user tools like Excel and Power BI.
 

Room For Improvement

KNIME needs improved visualization, large dataset handling, better UI, enhanced support, integration with AWS, and machine learning libraries.
Microsoft Power BI faces criticism for Windows dependency, interface complexity, limited features, and challenges in integration and pricing.
For graphics, the interface is a little confusing.
The machine learning and profileration aspects are fascinating and align with my academic background in statistics.
Access was more logical in how it distinguished between data and its formatting.
This makes Power BI difficult to manage as loading times can reach one or two minutes, which is problematic today.
I face performance issues with Microsoft Power BI, which are unsolvable.
 

Setup Cost

KNIME offers a free open-source desktop and competitively priced server, appealing to enterprises for cost-effective data solutions.
Microsoft Power BI provides cost-effective pricing options, with plans ranging from free to $4,995 monthly, competing with Tableau and Cognos.
The pricing for Microsoft Power BI is low, which is a good selling point.
I found the setup cost to be expensive
Power BI isn't very cheap, however, it is economical compared to other solutions available.
 

Valuable Features

KNIME enhances productivity with its visual tools, supporting integration, automation, and complex modeling without extensive coding skills.
Power BI offers seamless Microsoft integration, data visualization, and self-service tools, enhancing data-driven decisions with flexibility and affordability.
KNIME is more intuitive and easier to use, which is the principal advantage.
KNIME is simple and allows for fast project development due to its reusability.
Within the organization, Microsoft Power BI is used to create dashboards and gain insights into data, enhancing data-driven decision-making.
In today's data-driven environment, these tools are of substantial value, particularly for large enterprises with numerous processes that require extensive data analysis.
The entire ETL process is easy and supports many databases, allowing data pipelines from multiple sources to be gathered in one place for visualization.
 

Categories and Ranking

KNIME
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Data Mining (1st), Data Science Platforms (2nd)
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. KNIME is designed for Data Mining and holds a mindshare of 25.2%, down 27.5% compared to last year.
Microsoft Power BI, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 21.4% mindshare, down 22.2% since last year.
Data Mining
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Laurence Moseley - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a drag-and-drop interface and AI capabilities
It's difficult to pinpoint one single feature because KNIME has so many. For starters, it's very easy to learn. You can get started with just a one-hour video. The drag-and-drop interface makes it user-friendly. For example, if you want to read an Excel file, drag the "read Excel file" node from the repository, configure it by specifying the file location, and run it. This gives you a table with all your data. Next, you can clean the data by handling missing values, selecting specific columns you want to analyze, and then proceeding with your analysis, such as regression or correlation. KNIME has over 4,500 nodes available for download. In addition, KNIME offers various extensions. For instance, the text processing extension allows you to process text data efficiently. It's more powerful than other tools like NVivo and Palantir. KNIME also has AI capabilities. If you're unsure about the next step, the AI assistant can suggest the most frequently used nodes based on your previous work. Another valuable feature is the integration with Python. If you need to perform a task that requires Python, you can simply add a Python node, write the necessary code,
James Balbach - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Mining solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Educational Organization
40%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about KNIME?
Since KNIME is a no-code platform, it is easy to work with.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for KNIME?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with KNIME?
I have seen the potential to interact with Python, which is currently a bit limited. I am interested in the newer version, 5.4, when it becomes available. The machine learning and profileration asp...
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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Infocom Corporation, Dymatrix Consulting Group, Soluzione Informatiche, MMI Agency, Estanislao Training and Solutions, Vialis AG
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 Knime, Weka, IBM and others in Data Mining. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.