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Metabase vs Microsoft Power BI comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

Metabase
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Power BI
Ranking in BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
332
Ranking in other categories
Reporting (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the BI (Business Intelligence) Tools category, the mindshare of Metabase is 0.9%, down from 1.0% 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
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Power BI7.6%
Metabase0.9%
Other91.5%
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Ibrahim Izz El-Deen - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Engineer at USYTech
Modern analytics tool enhances user interactions with neat visualizations for improved decision-making
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows, requires manual infrastructure management, which could be improved. Increased customization and visualization options in the open-source edition would be beneficial. Additionally, it might be helpful if more complex queries and stored procedures were supported.
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Metabase's key advantage is its modern approach to business intelligence."
"It is easy for a new user to learn the tool."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its interface, which is used to query data into Metabase. I think it is very useful and handy for a novice."
"I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten."
"Provides a full platform (database, ETL, reporting, analysis, and so on)"
"It gives us, the ability to do a lot of analysis quickly, similar to ad hoc analysis."
"However, it is very well integrated with other Microsoft products, including PowerApps and Excel, as well as Access, so it fits well into our workflow."
"Microsoft BI is worth it."
"Power BI is a great tool for analytics; it is useful if you have a requirement to create a dashboard with self-service capability, along with KPIs, and you want to drill down to the data details."
"SQL Server 2016 delivers built-in mobile BI capabilities, and the above tools give professionals the ability to deliver business insights quickly and easily as well as enabling a quick way of presenting the data, charts, and reports over a web portal that is compatible across platforms from desktops to major mobile devices."
"With the out-of-the-box Data Platform and Business Intelligence ecosystem, you get the entire platform with a single license."
"Automated reports can be generated using SQL Reporting and Analysis in XML and PDF formats which are easier to read and understand."
 

Cons

"The solution could provide more customization."
"I think there is a need to add a few more advanced visuals in the tool. There are a standard set of visuals in the tool which are available."
"The tool must be made more user-friendly."
"One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective."
"The visualization aspect, while being the most visible to business users, also happens the be the weakest point in the entire Microsoft BI stack."
"They are improving it all the time. What would be nice is if they could respond to feature requests more quickly. They can provide faster support for new features."
"The report server feature is quite limited."
"I think that they should improve the mobile application that they have, it's very poor."
"I think because I'm moving more into RPA, I'd definitely like to see integration across the RPA, Power BI, or Tableau platforms, because that integration could then make automation and mundane reporting much faster."
"The mobile app is very poor."
"We have used other solutions and the reporting functionality should be user-friendly and have a drag and drop feature should be available, but Microsoft BI doesn't have these features. When you are creating reports and you can't change as a user. Every time you need one developer or one technical person to make the changes."
"I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would not say it is a cheap tool, but it's viable."
"Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable."
"The product is open-sourced."
"Its licensing cost is very high. It is $20 per user, which is very high, but it is a good product, so you pay for it."
"In the beginning, the solution cost approximately $1,000 per month, we have a Microsoft startup subscription. There is a subscription pack for startups company which we are able to have for one year."
"The solution is less expensive than other PowerBI tools, which is why most people go with it, although it does cost more than MSBI tools."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"It is part of our Office 365 license."
"Microsoft BI is considered to be competitively priced when compared to other similar solutions in the market."
"The current licensing model that Microsoft BI has is expensive. My customers have told me the cost is approximately $20 per user and this can get expensive fast. There should be a one-time purchase option if the customer has a lot of users."
"Pricing, that's where Microsoft beats Tableau. It is priced much cheaper."
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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
Comms Service Provider
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business137
Midsize Enterprise59
Large Enterprise171
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Metabase?
Using the open-source edition of Metabase on AWS EC2 cost us around $29 per month for the EC2 instance, which was affordable.
What needs improvement with Metabase?
One area for improvement could be in offering more advanced features even in the open-source edition or making the paid versions more cost-effective. Data scalability, especially if the data grows,...
What is your primary use case for Metabase?
I used Metabase for business intelligence and analytics in my organization. We connected Metabase to AWS Athena, allowing us to query and visualize data stored in S3 buckets.
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
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Metabase vs. Microsoft Power BI and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.