Knowage vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Knowage and Microsoft are both solutions in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category. Knowage is ranked #32, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. Knowage holds a 1.1% mindshare in BIT, compared to Microsoft’s 7.6% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Knowage users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Knowage

Read 18 Knowage reviews

4,165 Views
2,957 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Microsoft Power BI

Read 332 Microsoft Power BI reviews

41,703 Views
27,941 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Knowage

Microsoft Power BI

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

Knowage and Microsoft Power BI are competitive offerings in the business intelligence sector, each with distinct advantages. Microsoft Power BI is often favored due to its extensive features and integration capabilities, even if it comes with higher initial costs, compared to Knowage’s pricing flexibility and open-source nature.

Features: Knowage provides robust data integration capabilities, customizability, and support for various data sources. It is an open-source tool, allowing organizations to configure and enhance as needed. Microsoft Power BI excels in offering powerful analytics tools, seamless integration with Microsoft services, and a highly intuitive data visualization experience. Its comprehensive insights and advanced features provide a strong competitive edge.

Room for Improvement: Knowage can improve in terms of user interface design, user documentation, and expanding community support for troubleshooting. Microsoft Power BI may enhance through offering more cost-effective tiers, improving performance on large datasets, and supporting more open-source integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Knowage offers a flexible deployment model compatible with diverse systems and a detailed setup process. Microsoft Power BI, benefiting from Microsoft's extensive support infrastructure, ensures a smooth deployment experience through its cloud-based approach, coupled with a robust customer service framework.

Pricing and ROI: Knowage’s open-source model translates to lower initial costs, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious organizations. In contrast, Microsoft Power BI involves higher upfront costs; however, its extensive features and integration capabilities lead to higher ROI, making it a justified choice for many businesses despite the expense. Power BI's pricing starts at $9.99 per user per month, with more advanced features available at higher price points.

To learn more, read our detailed Knowage vs. Microsoft Power BI Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Knowage vs. Microsoft Power BI

October 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 920,769 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

Knowage

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

32nd

Ranking in Reporting

22nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Power BI

Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

1st

Ranking in Reporting

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

332

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Knowage is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Power BI is 7.6%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI	7.6%
Knowage	1.1%
Other	91.3%

BI (Business Intelligence) Tools

Featured Reviews

AbdulshukoorMohammed

General Manager Information Technology & Enterprise Applications Manager at OXFORD HOLDING

Easy to customize, cross-platform capable, and very stable

The only challenge here is that it's a Java-based platform. It requires very high technical skills. When we come to the integration with the single sign-on facilities, that part is very challenging. In Power BI and other tools, it's very easy to integrate with active directory and single sign-on, and identity management is very easy in other business intelligence tools. However, when it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports. The solution could be cheaper.

Read full review

Hemanthreddy Vakiti

Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Interactive dashboards have transformed restaurant data into faster daily business decisions

Microsoft Power BI has many features and there is not a lot to improve. However, the licensing can be confusing. When deciding between Pro and Premium, I find it difficult to distinguish what features are offered by Pro and what features are offered by Premium, including the particular differences to choose between both licensing models. Additionally, some features such as DAX, which I mentioned previously, involve DAX calculations and complex data modeling, which are somewhat advanced and not easily understandable. Prior knowledge is required or you need to go through the documentation. If the documentation is made comprehensive so that anyone with no knowledge on DAX can easily use it by going through the documentation, it would be really helpful. Additionally, if the integration with non-Microsoft tools is improved and performance is optimized, then Microsoft Power BI can become a top-ranked visualization tool. The user experience with Microsoft Power BI is quite good. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for both technical and non-technical users to create reports. However, only the advanced features are somewhat complex, and if the documentation is improved, it can be easily accessible.

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

"It's very easy to get the historical reports you need based on the business requirements and this helps our executives for taking decisions."

"We can easily do our own customizations."

"The most valuable features to us are application implementation, development, and analysis."

"Instead of just relying on emails to disperse our reports, having a central server to do this for us has helped our organization and has pushed us into a better place."

"Nice features available in SpagoBI compared with other open-source BI are Auditing, Collaborative BI, Query By Example, and User Profiling."

"I am satisfied with the product in general given what the company invested in it, which was just our time."

"It improves sales and products, which motivates employees."

"The most valuable feature of SpagoBI is that it is open source and 100% free without limits."

More Knowage pros

"Considering that it's Microsoft, it can be integrated with the Power Platform, which is also Microsoft-based, like SharePoint, Power apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, which is the most user-friendly."

"I've seen no issues with BI's stability."

"It is a good and very useful product; I find it to be extremely useful because it gives me a deeper insight into my business, and it lets me analyze things and make decisions based on the data."

"The demand estimation and forecasting profitability are the most effective features of Microsoft Power BI, along with vendor and supply chain risk analysis, inventory and stock forecasting, real-time production monitoring, and quality control through defect tracking and root cause analysis."

"I have found the quick reporting and the conductivity with all the data sources valuable."

"One of the most valuable features of Power BI is the ease of use; it is comfortable and there is not a steep learning curve for this solution, and if you have some idea of the data and basic visualization ideas, you can use this solution comfortably."

"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."

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

More Microsoft Power BI pros

Cons

"When it comes to Knowage, it's a bit heavy, it's time-consuming sometimes, it's not very fast, and definitely not as fast as other business intelligence tools in terms of getting graphical reports."

"We expected the community to be bigger than what it currently is."

"I faced difficulties when using the email feature and documentation was scant."

"Yes, using Mobile and Desktop Editions, we would sometimes need to restart the service."

"Unfortunately, many interesting features do not work when you are using a custom database for storing the metadata."

"Development of SpagoBI has now been moved to Knowage. Users interested in further developments of the platform will have to look there."

"As all software and especially the open-source ones have always something that can work better, in this case, SpagoBI is slightly difficult to implement."

"Tomcat configuration was tricky in earlier versions."

More Knowage cons

"Licensing could be improved."

"I believe there is room for improvement in terms of authentication and certain functionalities in Power BI. For instance, adjusting the width of columns is not easily done, as there is only an option to enable or disable automatic adjustment. This can be a significant drawback for clients who desire more flexibility."

"The solution could improve the mobile application design. It is difficult to use compared to the desktop version."

"At times it is not stable, and we need to use other connectors to link with the data."

"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."

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

"The cost of the solution can get high."

"Microsoft BI could improve by having better collaboration between developers working on the same dashboard. The developer platform is all done on a single laptop and it's difficult to have the same project files work. Two developers have to go back and forth. You have to have the project file on one developer's laptop making it difficult to co-develop."

More Microsoft Power BI cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Knowage is open-source, and an enterprise edition is also available."

"It allows the implementation of an effective reporting system using internal skills at a limited upfront cost."

"I very much recommend the free trial mode."

"Power BI comes with enterprise Microsoft licensing. So for the user, you don't have to pay, but you do have to pay a one-time cost."

"Microsoft BI requires licenses."

"You don't need a license for development, but if you want to publish to external users, you need a license. The licensing is very costly, but I think that since the advantages and benefits of Power BI are so high, people are willing to pay. I can't blame them."

"Downloading Power BI Desktop is free."

"We have premium licenses, but you can use it for free. You can share the content with anyone else, so you can use it for free."

"Its cost seems to be unreasonable if you have many users, but for a lesser number of users, it is reasonable. It is $10 per month. Clients easily accept this option, so they must think it is reasonable. It is quite cheap as compared to other tools, such as Tableau. One of the best things about this solution is that it has a trial version."

"Microsoft Power BI has reasonable pricing."

More Microsoft Power BI pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user79932

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

19%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	137
Midsize Enterprise	59
Large Enterprise	171

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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...

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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 ...

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Comparisons

Tableau Enterprise vs Knowage

Compared 8% of the time

Pentaho Business Analytics vs Knowage

Compared 7% of the time

Procurify vs Knowage

Compared 6% of the time

Oracle OBIEE vs Knowage

Compared 4% of the time

ElegantJ BI vs Knowage

Compared 4% of the time

More Knowage Competitors

Amazon QuickSight vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 14% of the time

Tableau Enterprise vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 8% of the time

Domo vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 4% of the time

IBM Cognos vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 3% of the time

QlikView vs Microsoft Power BI

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Power BI Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Knowage

October 2026

Download Knowage product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Power BI

October 2026

Download Microsoft Power BI product report

Also Known As

SpagoBI

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

Overview

Knowage is an open-source business intelligence suite offering features like engine concepts and report customization. It's favored for its integration capabilities and self-service BI functionality, allowing users to leverage cross-platform access and conduct comprehensive data analysis.

Knowage stands out in the BI landscape by providing tools that facilitate autonomous data exploration, with an emphasis on flexibility and extensive integration options. With capabilities for embedding reports and dynamic dashboards, it supports various analysis needs through integration with databases and tools like Jasper and BIRT. Despite its technical complexity and interface limitations, Knowage's features such as GIS integration and big data visualization enhance operational efficiency and profitability analysis.

What are the key features of Knowage?

Powerful engines: Facilitate complex data processing with high efficiency.
Report customization: Tailor reports to meet specific business requirements.
Cross-platform access: Enable data accessibility across different devices.
Open-source: Leverage the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of open-source solutions.
Embedding capabilities: Integrate seamlessly with tools like Jasper for enhanced functionality.
Python support: Use Python for advanced data correlation and analyses.
GIS integration: Incorporate geographical data for enriched insights.

What benefits should you consider in reviews?

Increased efficiency: Streamlined report deployment and big data visualization.
Comprehensive analysis: Tools for evaluating activities and profitability.
Data export options: Support for exporting data in preferred formats simplifies reporting tasks.
Operational cost savings: Eliminates the need for third-party BI solutions.

In the healthcare and financial sectors, Knowage is used for deriving insights from health data warehouses and performing financial analyses. Companies use it to create dashboards and reports from MySQL databases, embedding them for wider distribution, and enabling effective resource evaluation and decision-making.

Knowage

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

FIAT Group, Italian air navigation service provider, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Telecom Italia, ASL Genovese, San Giovanni Battista University Hospital

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

Knowage vs. Microsoft Power BI

October 2026

Free Report: Knowage vs. Microsoft Power BI

Find out what your peers are saying about Knowage vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.

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